trained "navvies" engaged upon the same kind of labour. There were
also very great differences of age and physical condition amongst
them--old men and consumptive-looking lads, hardly out of their
teens. They looked hard at me as I walked down the central line, but
they were not anyway uncivil. "What time is 't, maister?" asked a
middle-aged man, with gray hair, as he wiped his forehead. "Hauve-
past ten," said I. "What time says he?" inquired a feeble young
fellow, who was resting upon his barrow. "Hauve-past ten, he says,"
replied the other. "Eh; it's warm!" said the tired lad, lying down
upon his barrow again. One thing I noticed amongst these men, with
very rare exceptions, their apparel, however poor, evinced that
wholesome English love of order and cleanliness which generally
indicates something of self-respect in the wearer--especially among
poor folk. There is something touching in the whiteness of a well-
worn shirt, and the careful patches of a poor man's old fustian
coat.

As I lounged about amongst the men, a mild-eyed policeman came up,
and offered to conduct me to Jackson, the labour-master, who had
gone down to the other end of the moor, to look after the men at
work at the great sewer--a wet clay cutting--the heaviest bit of
work on the ground. We passed some busy brickmakers, all plastered
and splashed with wet clay --of the earth, earthy. Unlike the
factory operatives around them, these men clashed, and kneaded, and
sliced among the clay, as if they were working for a wager. But they
were used to the job, and working piece-work. A little further on,
we came to an unbroken bit of the moor. Here, on a green slope we
saw a poor lad sitting chirruping upon the grass, with a little
cloutful of groundsel for bird meat in his hand, watching another,
who was on his knees, delving for earth-nuts with an old knife.