MARY. Well, I never let your father come over me like that. But there's many wives do think that road of their husbands, especially young wives. I'm a bit surprised at you being one of them for all that, Ruth. You'd always a will of your own.
RUTH. My will's asleep.
MARY. Don't let it waken up too sudden.
RUTH. No fear of that. I eat too much.
MARY. There's a-many eat too little, Ruth. There was one you used to know came in to us the other night. He'd been short of food for weeks and looked it too, poor lad.
RUTH. A friend of mine? What friend?
MARY (reluctantly). Martin Kelsall, if you want to know. There was him and others. Friends of the People they call themselves, and your father's joined them now. I never heard such talk in my life. Proper wild it was. Drilling on the moors, and knocking out the engine boiler plugs and breaking the machinery and I don't know what.
RUTH. And father, too?
MARY. As savage as the worst of them, the silly old man. Got to threats before they'd done.
RUTH. Threats?