It crushes us; it ought to crush us on to our knees.

For us who saw Nanny, infirm, shrunken, and so weary, yet a type of the noblest womanhood, suffering for years, and misunderstood her to the end, what expiation can there be?
I do not want to storm at the man who made her life so burdensome.

Too many years have passed for that, nor would Nanny take it kindly if I called her man names.
Sanders worked little after his marriage.

He had a sore back, he said, which became a torture if he leant forward at his loom.

What truth there was in this I cannot say, but not every weaver in Thrums could "louse" when his back grew sore.