"But are you so ill off?"
"Oh! he'd had a good harvesting enough; but then he owed all that for he's rent; and he's club money wasn't paid up, nor he's shop. And then, with he's wages"—(I forget the sum—under ten shillings)—"how could a man keep his mouth full, when he had five children! And then, folks is so unmarciful—I'll just tell you what they says to me, now, last time I was over at the board—"
And thereon he rambled off into a long jumble of medical-officers, and relieving-officers, and Farmer This, and Squire That, which indicated a mind as ill-educated as discontented. He cursed or rather grumbled at—for he had not spirit, it seemed, to curse anything—the New Poor Law; because it "ate up the poor, flesh and bone";—bemoaned the "Old Law," when "the Vestry was forced to give a man whatsomdever he axed for, and if they didn't, he'd go to the magistrates and make 'em, and so sure as a man got a fresh child, he went and got another loaf allowed him next vestry, like a Christian;"—and so turned through a gate, and set to work forking up some weeds on a fallow, leaving me many new thoughts to digest.
That night, I got to some town or other, and there found a night's lodging, good enough for a walking traveller.
CHAPTER XII.
CAMBRIDGE.
When I started again next morning, I found myself so stiff and footsore, that I could hardly put one leg before the other, much less walk upright. I was really quite in despair, before the end of the first mile; for I had no money to pay for a lift on the coach, and I knew, besides, that they would not be passing that way for several hours to come. So, with aching back and knees, I made shift to limp along, bent almost double, and ended by sitting down for a couple of hours, and looking about me, in a country which would have seemed dreary enough, I suppose, to any one but a freshly-liberated captive, such as I was. At last I got up and limped on, stiffer than ever from my rest, when a gig drove past me towards Cambridge, drawn by a stout cob, and driven by a tall, fat, jolly-looking farmer, who stared at me as he passed, went on, looked back, slackened his pace, looked back again, and at last came to a dead stop, and hailed me in a broad nasal dialect—
"Whor be ganging, then, boh?"
"To Cambridge."
"Thew'st na git there that gate. Be'est thee honest man?"