_] We're forbid to take a single branch; but their
lordships, they take the very skin off of us--we've assurance money to
pay, an' spinning-money, an' charges in kind--we must go here an' go
there, an' do so an' so much field work, all willy-nilly.
ANSORGE
That's just how it is--what the manufacturer leaves us, their lordships
takes from us.
SECOND OLD WEAVER
[_Has taken a seat at the next table._] I've said it to his lordship
hisself. By your leave, my lord, says I, it's not possible for me to work
on the estate so many days this year. I comes right out with it. For
why--my own bit of ground, my lord, it's been next to carried away by the
rains. I've to work night and day if I'm to live at all. For oh, what a
flood that was...! There I stood an' wrung my hands, an' watched the good
soil come pourin' down the hill, into the very house! And all that dear,
fine seed!... I could do nothin' but roar an' cry until I couldn't see
out o' my eyes for a week. And then I had to start an' wheel eighty heavy
barrow-loads of earth up that hill, till my back was all but broken.
PEASANT
[_Roughly._] You weavers here make such an awful outcry. As if we hadn't
all to put up with what Heaven sends us.
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