"Then what are we to do,—lie down and die?" asked the other; but looked as if he were aware he had spoken foolishly, under the impulse of despair.
"I'm sure I often wish to die," said another, joining the conversation in a doleful tone; "I've buried my two youngest, and the oldest lad's going fast after his poor mother; one can't get bread enough to keep body and soul together!"
"Well, if it hadn't been for Seth Thompson's kindness," said another, "I believe I should have been dead by this time. I never felt so near putting an end to my life as I did last Sunday morning. I've been out o' work, now, nine weeks; and last Saturday I never put a crumb in my mouth, for I couldn't get it, and I caught up a raw potatoe in the street last Sunday morning, and ate it for sheer hunger. Seth Thompson saw me, and—God bless his heart!—he called me in and gave me a cup of warm coffee and some toast, and slipped a shilling into my hand." And the man turned aside to dash away his tears.
"Ay, depend upon it, we shall miss Seth, when he leaves us," said several voices together.
"It's many a year since there was a master in Hinckley like him," said the man with the short black pipe, "and, I fear, when he is gone, the whole grinding crew will be more barefaced than ever with their extortions and oppressions of poor men. Seth knew what it was to be nipped himself when he was younger; that's the reason that he can feel for others that suffer."
"It isn't always the case, though," said another; "look at skin-flint Jimps, the glove-master; I remember him when he was as ragged as an ass's colt: and where is there such another grinding villain as Jimps, now he is so well off?"
"The more's the shame for a man that preaches and professes to be religious," said the smoker.
"It was but last Saturday forenoon," resumed the man who had mentioned Jimps, the glove-master, "that he docked us two-pence a dozen, again: and when I asked him if his conscience wouldn't reproach him when he went to chapel, he looked like a fiend, and said, 'Bob! I knew what it was to be ground once; but it's my turn to grind now!'"
"And they call that religion, do they?" said the smoker, with an imprecation.
"It won't mend it to swear, my lad," said the intellectual-looking man; "we know one thing,—that whatever such a fellow as this may do that professes religion, he doesn't imitate the conduct of his Master."