It was Reuben's misfortune that dignity was at all times impossible to him.

Now, as he sat in his shirt-sleeves and stocking-feet, flushed with the exertion of pulling off his heavy boots, the light of the tallow candle falling on his weak eyes with their red rims, on his large open mouth with the conspicuous gap in its front teeth, and his stubby hair, he was more than usually grotesque.

'As slamp an wobbly as an owd corn-boggart,' so his neighbours described him when they wished to be disrespectful, and the simile fitted very closely with the dishevelled, disjointed appearance which was at all times characteristic of him, Sundays or weekdays.

No one studying the pair, especially at such a moment as this--the _malaise_ of the husband--the wife towering above him, her grey hair hanging loose round her black brows and sallow face instinct with a rugged and indomitable energy--could have doubted in whose hands lay the government of Needham Farm.
'I'll thank yo not to talk nonsense, Reuben Grieve,' said his wife sharply.

'D'yo think they're _my_ flesh an blood, thoose childer?
An who'll ha to do for 'em but me, I should loike to know?
Who'll ha to put up wi their messin an their dirt but _me_?
Twenty year ha yo an I been married, Reuben, an niver till this neet did I ha to goo down on my knees an sweep oop after scrubbin-day! Iv I'm to be moidered wi em, I'll be paid for 't.
Soa I let yo know--it's little enough.' And Hannah took her payment.