“What did Jimmy die of?”
Whooping cough. They’d all been bad but him—Dick. Mother said he’d had it when he was no older nor the babby.
Whether the whooping-cough had caused an undue absorption of Mitchel’s means, certain it was, Dick looked famished. His cheeks were thin, his hands blue.
“Have you been ill, Dick?”
No, he had not been ill. ’Twas Jimmy and the t’others.
“He’s the incapablest little villain I ever had put me to do with,” struck in the ploughman. “More lazy nor a fattened pig.”
“Are you lazy, Dick?”
I think an eager disclaimer was coming out, but the boy remembered in time who was present—his master, the ploughman.
“Not lazy wilful,” he said, bursting into tears. “I does my best: mother tells me to.”
“Take that, you young sniveller,” said Hall, dealing him a good sound slap on the left cheek. “And now go on: ye know ye’ve got this lot to go through to-day.”