“Squire,” said a big fellow, white with hunger, “Squire, I hevn’t touched food of any kind for forty hours. You count hours when you are hungry, squire.”
“We’re all o’ us,” said his companion, “faint and clemmed. We hevn’t strength to be men any longer. Look at me! I’m wanting to cry like a bairn.”
“I’m ready to fight, squire,” added a man standing near by; “I hev a bit o’ manhood yet, and I’d fight for my rights, I would that!—if I nobbnd hed a slice or two o’ bread.”
At the same time a young woman, little more than a child, came tottering forward, and stood at the side of Mistress Annis. She had a little baby in her arms, she did not speak, she only looked in the elder woman’s face then cast her eyes down upon the child. It was tugging at an empty breast with little sharp cries of hungry impatience. Then she said, “I hev no milk for him! The lile lad is sucking my blood!” Her voice was weak and trembling, but she had no tears left.
Madam covered her face, she was weeping, and the next moment Katherine emptied her mother’s purse into the starving woman’s hand. She took it with a great cry, lifting her face to heaven—“Oh God, it is money! Oh God, it is milk and bread!” Then looking at Katherine she said, “Thou hes saved two lives. God sent thee to do it”—and with the words, she found a sudden strength to run with her child to a shop across the street, where bread and milk were sold.
“It’s little Dinas Sykes,” said a man whose voice was weak with hunger. “Eh! but I’m glad, God hes hed mercy on her!” and all watched Dinas running for milk and bread with a grateful sympathy. The squire was profoundly touched, his heart melted within him, and he said to the little company with the voice of a companion, not of a master, “Men, how many of you are present?”
“About forty-four men—and a few half grown lads. They need food worse than men do—they suffer more—poor lile fellows!”
“And you all hev women at home? Wives and daughters?”
“Ay, squire, and mothers, too! Old and gray and hungry—some varry patient, and just dying on their feet, some so weak they are crying like t’ childer of two or four years old. My God! Squire, t’ men’s suffering isn’t worth counting, against that of t’ women and children.”
“Friends, I hev no words to put against your suffering and a ten pound note will be better than all the words I could give you. It will at least get all of you a loaf of bread and a bit of beef and a mug of ale. Who shall I give it to?”