'And if you gets potatoes you'll be getting a pig--and then
you'll want straw, and meal to fat 'un--and then I'll not trust you in
my barn, I can tell ye;' and so there it was. And if I'd had only one
half-acre of this here very down as we stands on, as isn't worth five
shillings a year--and I'd a given ten shillings for it--my belly wouldn't a
been empty now. Oh, they be dogs in the manger, and the Lord'll reward 'em
therefor! First they says they can't afford to work the land 'emselves, and
then they wain't let us work it ether. Then they says prices is so low they
can't keep us on, and so they lowers our wages; and then when prices goes
up ever so much, our wages don't go up with 'em. So, high prices or low
prices, it's all the same. With the one we can't buy bread, and with the
other we can't get work. I don't mind free trade--not I: to be sure, if
the loaf's cheap, we shall be ruined; but if the loafs dear, we shall be
starved, and for that, we is starved now. Nobody don't care for us; for my
part, I don't much care for myself. A man must die some time or other. Only
I thinks if we could some time or other just see the Queen once, and tell
her all about it, she'd take our part, and not see us put upon like that, I
do.
Pages:
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636