"Thou'st gi'en up a nice lass for a brazen-faaced 'uzzy; thou'rt an addle-'eaded ninny. Can'st'a see?"
"Ay, I tak' after my mother," was Tom's reply as he made his way upstairs. "Bein' fools runs in the family."
"It must or I should never 'a' reared thee," shouted his mother after him.
CHAPTER II
What I have related took place on the first Sunday in June in the year 1914. Brunford, a large manufacturing town which stood well-nigh in the centre of the cotton district of Lancashire, had enjoyed what was called "a great boom in trade." Mills had been working overtime, and money had been earned freely. During the last five years poor men had become rich, while the operatives had had their share in the general prosperity. This fact was manifest in the general life of the town. The sober and thrifty part of the population had increased their savings. Hundreds of people had bought their own cottages, and had laid by for a rainy day. The thriftless were none the better for the prosperity which abounded, rather they were the worse. Big wages had only meant increased drunkenness and increased misery. Still all the people hoped that good trade would continue and that there would be plenty of work.
On the following day Tom went to work as usual, but he felt that a new element had come into his life. He was not given to self-analysis, but while on the one hand he felt suddenly free, he knew on the other that he had sacrificed something which meant a great deal to him. Still he would not think about it. After all, all the time he had been keeping company with Alice he felt like a man tied to the end of a rope. He would now have his liberty. He was glad to be free from a girl who made him uncomfortable when he drank a glass of beer or went out to enjoy himself.
Tom was by no means a hero. There was a great deal of good in his nature, but there were coarse elements which affected him strongly. If Polly Powell had not appeared, it is possible, such was Alice's influence over him, that he would have remained true to his former ambitions, and probably have risen in the social scale. He was intelligent, and possessed a large degree of what the Lancashire people called gumption. On the other hand he was the child of his surroundings and of his order. The coarse life of the town had gripped him, and his home influences had not helped him toward the ideal which Alice Lister had helped him to strive after.
"Ay, Tom, I 'ear as Alice Lister has give thee the sack," said a youth a few days after Tom had parted from Alice.
"Maybe 'twas t'other way around," replied Tom.
"Why, yo doan't main that you chucked 'er?"