'Look here,' said Joyce, 'I hasn't. Fust comes the gown, and then comes I. Down in the good land to Zeal and Tawton, where the lanes be cut deep, I seed there be nethermost hard rock, then over that comes shellat, then a sort of gravelly trade (stuff), then a top o' that meat airth; and over all, like the gown, the waving green grass. Up here on the moor t'ain't so. There's the granite and then the moss, and if you scrats through the moss you comes right on and on to the stone. That be like us as lives up here, vaither and I, but wi' the quality it be different, as lives in lew (sheltered) places; they has more coverings nor us, night and day, I reckon.'
'You have no more clothes on you than that thin gown?'
'No, us be like moor rock, fust the moss, then the stone.'
'Are you begging?'
'I never axes for naught; what I wants I takes.'
The lady shivered and drew back on her seat. She was disgusted with the appearance, and offended at the rudeness of the girl.
'Why don't clothes grow on our backs, thick and warm as the wool on sheep, the fur on rabbits, and the moss on moorstones?'Twould come handier,' observed Joyce Cobbledick.
The lady made no reply.
'Wot's that man, that young man as spoke to you and I?' asked Joyce.
'I do not know his name.'