"If you hadn't put quite as much inside your head, Joe Fisher, and been doing of it for years, you might have had more for the outside on't now," again spoke Mrs. Cross in her sharp tones. The woman was not naturally sharp, as were some in Honey Fair; but the miserable fear she lived in, added to their present privations, told upon her temper.
"Hold your magging," said Joe Fisher. "I never like to quarrel with petticuts, one's own belongings excepted. All as I say, Mother Cross, is, don't you mag."
Mrs. Cross made no reply to this, and Fisher resumed.
"This comes of letting the Government and the masters have their own way! If we had that there strike among us, that I've so often told ye on, things would be different. Let a man sit down a minute, Cross."
Cross civilly pushed a chair towards him, concentrating his attention afterwards upon Mrs. Fisher. A crowd had collected round her; and Mrs. Buffle, with a feeling of humanity that few had given that lady credit for possessing, sent out an old woollen shawl to the shivering woman, and a basin of hasty pudding. The mother could not feed the whining children fast enough with the one iron spoon.
A young man ran up to Cross's door. It was Adam Thorneycroft. He did not live in Honey Fair, but often found his way to it, although Charlotte had rejected him. "Is Joe Fisher here?" asked he. "Fisher, why don't you go to the workhouse and tell them the state your wife is in? She can't stop there."
"Her state is no concern of your'n, Master Thorneycroft," was the sullen answer.
Thorneycroft turned on his heel, a scornful gesture escaping him at Fisher's half-stupid condition. "I must be off to my work," he observed; "but can't one of you, who are gentlemen at large, just go to the workhouse and acquaint them with the woman's helplessness, and that of her children around her?"
Timothy Carter responded to it. "I'll go," said he; "I haven't nothing to do with myself this afternoon."
Timothy and Adam walked away together, Tim treading with gingerly feet past his own door, lest his wife should recognise his step, bolt out, and stop him. Charlotte East was standing at her door, and Adam halted. Timothy walked on: he did not feel himself perfectly safe yet.