His efforts to save himself and the clock from destruction led to some singular flexures of the body, and his feet traced a maze as he advanced, hugging the clock to his chest.

The task was too much for his over-taxed patience: just opposite the stile he stood still, held his load high over his head, and shouting, 'Dang th' clock!' hurled it with all his force thirty feet against the mound, at the same time dropping a-sprawl.

The women, without the least excitement or surprise, quietly endeavoured to assist him up; and, as he resisted, one of them remarked in the driest matter-of-fact tone, 'Ourn be just like un--as contrary as the wind.' She alluded to her own husband.
When I mentioned this incident afterwards to Mrs.Luckett, she said the troubles the cottage women underwent on account of the 'beer' were past belief.

One woman who did some work at the farmhouse kept her cottage entirely by her own exertions; her husband doing nothing but drink.

He took her money from her by force, nor could she hide it anywhere but what he would hunt it out.