"
"Do they work in the fields hereabouts?"
"Oh yes--at hoeing, weeding and stone-picking, in hay-time and harvest.
Some of them walk from Morte--four miles here and four back. There is a
widow whose husband died on the home-farm--it was thought not to answer
to let widows remain in the cottages--this woman had five young
children, and when she moved to Morte, Mr. Chiverton kindly kept her on.
I want her to live at our gates."
"And what does she earn a day?"
"Ninepence. Of course, she has help from the parish as well--two
shillings a week, I think, and a loaf for each child besides."
A queer expression flitted over Bessie's face; she drew a long breath
and stretched her arms above her head.
"Yes, I feel it is wrong: the widow of a laborer who died in Mr.
Chiverton's service, who spends all her available strength in his
service herself, ought not to be dependent on parish relief. I put it to
him one day with the query, Why God had given him such great wealth? A
little house, a garden, the keep of a cow, a pig, would have made all
the difference in the world to her, and none to him, except that her
children might have grown up stout and healthy, instead of ill-nurtured
and weakly. But you are tired. Let us go and take a few turns in the
winter-garden. It is the perfection of comfort on a windy, cold day like
this."
Bessie acceded with alacrity. Castlemount was not the building of one
generation, but it owed its chief glories to its present master.
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