seem to be working very hard at their new employment, and it can
hardly be expected that they should, considering the great
difference between it and their usual labour. Leaning on their
spades and hammers, they watched me with a natural curiosity, as if
wondering whether I was a new ganger, or a contractor come to buy
stone. There were men of all ages amongst them, from about eighteen
years old to white-headed men past sixty. Most of them looked
healthy and a little embrowned by recent exposure to the weather;
and here and there was a pinched face which told its own tale. I got
into talk with a quiet, hardy-looking man, dressed in soil-stained
corduroy. He was a kind of overlooker. He told me that there were
from eighty to ninety factory hands employed in that quarry. "But,"
said he, "it varies a bit, yo known. Some on 'em gets knocked up
neaw an' then, an' they han to stop a-whoam a day or two; an' some
on 'em connot ston gettin' weet through--it mays 'em ill; an' here
an' theer one turns up at doesn't like the job at o'--they'd rayther
clem. There is at's both willin' an' able; thoose are likely to get
a better job, somewheer. There's othersome at's willin' enough, but
connot ston th' racket. They dun middlin', tak 'em one wi' another,
an' considerin' that they're noan use't to th' wark. Th' hommer fo's
leet wi' 'em; but we dunnot like to push 'em so mich, yo known--for
what's a shillin' a day? Aw know some odd uns i' this delph at never
tastes fro mornin' till they'n done at neet,--an' says nought abeawt
it, noather. But they'n families. Beside, fro wake lads, sick as
yon, at's bin train't to nought but leet wark, an' a warm place to
wortch in, what con yo expect? We'n had a deeal o' bother wi 'em
abeawt bein' paid for weet days, when they couldn't wortch. They wur
not paid for weet days at th' furst; an' they geet it into their
yeds at Shorrock were to blame. Shorrock's th' paymaister, under th'
Guardians, But, then, he nobbut went accordin' to orders, yo known.