Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/57

 seemed sullenly apart from his fellows. He was the trusted man to go to London with the wagon or wagons of fruit and produce in season. Started at four in the morning, got back at any time at night—or next morning in the fog—was probably allowed eighteenpence for travelling expenses, and was secretly known by the whole village to get twenty-two shillings a week, instead of a pound, which was secretly held by his wife and the whole village to be a secret between him and her and the boss. She set out the bread and cheese on the table and the black bottle of ale, late in foggy "Lunnon night," and went out to the front with something over her head, now and then, to look for her chap.

She had a holiday once every two years to a married sister's at Margate, but told me she was going to have on' this ye'. " We ain't going to do this work all me life for nothin'. My chap give it to me this year."

She used to sit outside in the sun and sew calico—well, combinations—with an offhandedness that set even me at my ease, and I was a shy man.

One day I heard him ask her to wash his trousers, and he added "only wash the linin'." Which gave me a poor opinion of his intelligence. But I've thought since that the linin' was probably put in so that it could be undone and drawn out at the bottom of the pants. (I've a vague impression of seeing some so.) For on Sunday morning he sat at the back and read Reynold's Newspaper. He lent it to his wife's father afterwards, who lived with granny next