“But I shall never get through my work without a drop of beer to wash dust out of my throat and spirit me up,” persisted Johnson. “I feel like another sort of man when I’ve had my pint.”
“Yes, just for a bit,” replied Ned. “Now it seems to me just the same as what we might do with our fire. I bid our Esther look to the fire, so she goes and sticks to the poker, and each now and then she pokes away at the fire, and the fire blazes up and blazes up, but very soon there’s nothing left to blaze with. The fire’ll be out directly, so I says to our Mary, you look after the fire, so our Mary goes to the heap and fetches a shovel of coal, and claps it on the top of the hot cinders, and she won’t let our Esther poke it no more, so it burns steady and bright, and throws out a good heat, and lasts a long time. Now, when you take your drop of beer, you’re just poking the fire, you’re not putting any coal on; you can work like a lion for a bit, but you’re only using up the old stock of strength faster and faster, you’re not putting on any new. I’ve helped you to put a little gradely coal on to-night, and I hope it won’t be the last time by many.”
“Father,” broke in Esther, laughing, and highly entertained at the part she bore in her father’s illustration, “when you tell your tale again, you must make our Mary stick to the poker, and me clap the coal on.”
“Ay, ay, child,” said her father, “you shall each take it in turn.”
“Well, you may be right,” sighed Johnson; “but Jack Barnes says as he’s knowed scores of teetottallers that’s wasted away to skin and bone for want of the drink; he says beer strengthens the bone, and makes the muscles tight and firm.”
“Jack Barnes may say what he likes, but I’ll just ask you, Thomas, to think and judge for yourself. You see me and mine; you see seven total abstainers here to-night. Not one of these childer knows the taste of the drink; they work hard, you know, some in the pit, some in the mill: do they look nothing but skin and bone? Where’ll you find healthier childer? I’m not boasting, for it’s the good Lord that’s given ’em health, yes, and strength too, without the drink.”
“Ay, and just look at Jack Barnes’s own lads, and the company they keep,” said John, the eldest son; “you may see them all at the four lane ends, (Note 1), any Sunday morn, with their pigeons, looking more like scarecrows than Christians; and afore night they’ll be so weary that they’ll scarce know how to bide anywhere. They’ll be lounging about, looking as limp as a strap out of gear, till they’ve got the ale in them, and then they’re all for swearing and shouting up and down the lanes.”
“I can’t deny,” said Johnson, “that you teetottallers have the best of it in many ways. It’s a bad bringing-up for childer to see such goings-on as is in Barnes’s house.”
“And, Thomas,” said Brierley’s wife, “you know how it is with Joe Taylor’s lads and wenches. There’s a big family on ’em. They’re not short of brass in that house, or shouldn’t be. There’s drink enough and to spare goes down their throats, and yet there’s not one of the whole lot but’s as lean as an empty bobbin, and as white as a heap of cotton. They’re nearly starved to death afore reckoning-day comes; and with all their good wage they cannot make things reach and tie.”
“Well, I must wish you good night now,” said Johnson, rising to go. “I suppose I can do nothing about our Sammul but have patience.”