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I gets my ten shillings a week all the year round, and harvesting, and a pig, and a 'lotment and that's just why I come here. If I can get it, why can't you?" "Cause our masters baint like yourn." "No, by George, there baint no money round here like that, I can tell you." "And why ain't they?" continued the speaker. "There's the shame on it.
Have you got a shilling? We shall have to get down presently, or we shall be seen, and the men and all of us will get into a row because we are travelling without tickets. We had better get down when they come to the 'lotment gardens, and we must tip them; but Betty has only got tuppence, and I have only fourpence, and that is all in coppers, mostly ha'pennies. I don't like to offer it to them."
I dursn't set hand to t' spade, an' efter a minute I crept back to bed wi' them green eyes followin' me, an' burnin' hoils i' my back same as if they'd bin two red-hot coils. Sooin as cockleet com, I gat up, dressed misen an' set off for t' 'lotment, 'an by t' Mess! what does ta reckon was t' first thing I saw?" "Had the pig come to life again?" I asked in wonder.
I looked at t' sty, and then at t' pig, an' then I felt t' pig, an' he were reight fat. An' when I'd felt t' pig I turned round to see if t' 'lotment were fairly mine, and theer stood t' lad that had telled me to bury t' potate. "'Well, he says, 'is owt wrang wi' t' pig? "'Nay, there's nowt wrang wi' t' pig, but how did he get here?
But just then I heerd a buzzin' sound, an' I reckoned there mun be a waps somewheer about. An' a waps it were. He flew round an' round my heead, allus coomin' nearer an' nearer, an' at lang length he settled hissen reight on t' top o' my neb. An' wi' that I gav a jump, an' by Gow! there was I sittin' on t' bench in my 'lotment.
Shoo gav me a sup o' poddish for my supper, an' all t' time I were eytin' it I kept thinkin' o' t' fried ham that I'd missed, an' I were fair mad wi' misen. I went to bed, but I couldn't get to sleep nohow. You see, I'd bin plagued wi' mowdiewarps up i' t' 'lotment; they'd scratted up my spring onions an' played Hamlet wi' my curly greens.
He'd green eyes, an' I could niver get shut o' them eyes choose what I were doin'. Well, after a while it faired up, and I set off for my garden. When I gat nigh I were fair capped. I'd set t' potate at t' top-side o' t' 'lotment, and theer, just wheer I'd set it, were a pig-sty, wi' a pig inside it fit to kill. I were that flustered you could ha' knocked me down wi' a feather.
"Well, I reckoned it were a fooil's trick, but all t' same I put t' potate back into t' grund, an' went home. That neet it started rainin' an' it kept at it off an' on for well-nigh a week, an' I couldn't get down to my 'lotment nohow. But all t' time I couldn't tak my mind off o' t' lad that had made me bury my potate.
I had a wife once, and so she was too good for me by the far, and it was God's will, ma'am; but I has a child, ma'am, that I wouldn't see a straw touch for the world; the boy's only four yeare old: and I has a snug fifty-acre farm and a town 'lotment, and I has no debts in the world, and one teem and four bullocks; and I'se ten head oh cattle, and a share on eight hundred sheep, so I as a rite to a desent servant, that can wash and cook and make the place decant; and I don't mind what religion she bey, if she is sober and good, only I'se a Protestant myself; and the boy I have, I promised the mother on her death-bed should be a Catholic, and I won't, anyhow, have any interference in this here matter.
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