CHAPTER XII.
"Oh, reason not the deed; our basest beggars Are in the poorest things superfluous: Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's." -- King Lear.
A short fit of rain came on whilst we were in the cottage in Newton Street, so we sat a little while with Ruth, listening to her quaint tattle about the old man and his feathered pets; about the children, the hard times, and her own personal ailments;--for, though I could not help thinking her a very good-hearted, humorous old woman, bravely disposed to fight it out with the troubles of her humble lot, yet it was clear that she was inclined to ease her harassed mind now and then by a little wholesome grumbling; and I dare say that sometimes she might lose her balance so far as to think, like "Natterin' Nan," "No livin' soul atop o't earth's bin tried as I've bin tried: there's nob'dy but the Lord an' me that knows what I've to bide." Old age and infirmity, too, had found Ruth out, in her penurious obscurity; and she was disposed to complain a little, like Nan, sometimes, of "the ills that flesh is heir to:"- "Fro' t' wind i't stomach, rheumatism, Tengin pains i't gooms, An' coughs, an' cowds, an' t' spine o't back, I suffer martyrdom.
"Yet nob'dy pities mo, or thinks I'm ailin' owt at all; T' poor slave mun tug an' tew wi't wark, Wolivver shoo can crawl." Old Ruth was far from being as nattle and querulous as the famous ill-natured grumbler so racily pictured by Benjamin Preston, of Bradford; but, like most of the dwellers upon earth, she was a little bit touched with the same complaint.

When the rain was over, we came away.

I cannot say that the weather ever "cleared up" that day; for, at the end of every shower, the dark, slow-moving clouds always seemed to be mustering for another downfall.

We came away, and left the "cant" old body "busy bakin' for Betty," and "shooing" the hens away from her feet, and she shuffled about the house.

A few yards lower in Newton Street, we turned up a low, dark entry, which led to a gloomy little court behind.