THAT SHELDEAKE. 31 



Husband going to strike ? '' '' Thank you kindly^ zur^ 

 the children be pretty well ; and as for striking, I tells 

 Durbin, I do, if he wants to strike. Til do it for ^un with 

 a mop handle ; " and I am quite sure she could and 

 would. Years ago she was the belle of the village and 

 master of Durbin^s heart; she is still master of her 

 husband, both morally and physically, and as for the 

 belle part of the business — well, she^s forty, and not by 

 any means to be '^'^ sneezed at/^ In truth, Durbin would 

 be a fool to strike ; he^s one of our best men, and rather 

 a favoured one. My mother says that my father and I 

 favour him because of his wife, but that's all stuff, of 

 course. Yes, I think, as I take out my pipe and settle 

 myself down by the ingle, waiting till the good woman 

 just heats up a basin of some sort of stew, which she 

 insists on my taking — yes, Fve seen many an un- 

 fortunate ^' gentleman emigrant '^ abroad who would be 

 infinitely better off if he were in Durbin's shoes. The 

 cottage has four rooms, besides an outhouse ; the room 

 I am sitting in is a marvel of cleanness ; the floor neatly 

 sanded against D.'s return, the table and dresser as white 

 as a hound's tooth, and it's array of plates and tins bright 

 enough to shave in almost. Two sturdy boys eye me 

 suspiciously from the corner, one of whom seems en- 

 deavouring to screw the heel of his foot into his left ear, 

 and the other stares at me solemnly over a huge piece of 

 bread and butter. I am really almost commencing to 

 moralise, when up comes the basin of stew steaming hot. 

 Durbin gets 17s. Qcl. a week, and an odd rabbit or two 

 now and then ; his wife keeps him away from the public, 

 and takes him to church on Sundays, and they both 

 look on the people '^ up at the house " as their friends, 

 and not their taskmasters. Little more than a rifle shot 



