Sa eee

WINNIE CORSELLIS ; OR, DEATH IN THE POT. 223

up from her butter-making to the girls sitting by
her side, was thinking to herself whether Winnie
was pretty or not.

“The master is just about took up with her, but
yet it ain’t to say a pretty face, yet it’s pleasant to
look at for all that, and I likes it,”

“What are you thinking about, Mrs. Ramsay ?”
asked Winnie, suddenly, as she caught the old
woman's eye fixed on her with a smile.

“Well, miss, I can’t just tell ’ee, but it weren’t
nothing’ bad.”

Winnie laughed. “No, I’m sure of that. Oh,
here’s Mr. Ramsay! I wonder if he’s going to
earry the hay this afternoon ; we want to go into
the field when he does ;” and then, turning to the
farmer, who had come through the brewhouse, she
continued, ‘I am afraid the children have tumbled
your haycocks about shamefully, Mr. Ramsay.
Trot was buried in one and Carrie in another,
and when they scrambled out they -pulled all
the hay down with them; we tried to put them
tidy again but I don’t think we managed it very
well.”

“Tumble them about as much as ever you like,
miss, it won’t hurt,” said the farmer, sitting down
in his arm-chair and wiping his face; “ they’ll be

carried this afternoon, so the little *uns must |

make the most of their time. It’s late hay harvest
even for this country, but the weather has put us
back terrible, or it would all have been got in
afore you came.”

“J am very glad it wasn’t,” said Winnie, slip-
ping off the table, for she knew Ramsay had come
in for his lunch and thought she might be in the
way if she stayed in the kitchen. ‘Come along,
Trot; we will go back to mamma, for if you are

coming into the hayfields this afternoon you must |

go to sleep, and have a long rest.”

When she had left the room, Ramsay turned to
his wife.

“ They’m Dudley folk, bean’t ’em ?”

“Yes, Mrs. Hammond’s married to a doctor
there, and this one is to marry his partner, the
gentleman as come over with them—so the nurse
tells me.”

“JT see a Dudley man just now: he were over
about that spotted calf.”

“ Ah,” said Mrs. Ramsay, as she shaped her
half-pound pats and stamped them with the im-
pression of a swan, “I'll be glad when that calf’s
gone, it do take a sight of milk. Did he make
you a pretty fair offer?”

“Nothing to grumble at. I suppose we shall
have a deal together, as you wants to get quit on it.
But he were talking a goodish bit about Dudley ;
they’m dying there by dozens.”

“Lor! good gracious, you don’t say so. Dying!
what of ?”

“The cholera ; it’s terrible bad, he says.”

“Ts it, to be sure now? Poor things, it must be
bad for ’em, shut up together, with such a sickness
about.”

“T suppose that’s why they come up?” re-
marked Ramsay, jerking his head towards the
parlour, “and very wise too.”

“Well, now, I shouldn’t wonder,” replied Mrs.
Ramsay, “ but it must be a trouble to ’em to leave
their men folk in it. Happen they don’t know
how bad it is ?”

‘Best not say any thing to them, then—it would
only trouble them worse. The less they knows
the better, and there won’t no one come anigh here
to tell them.”

In consequence of which decision, Winnie and
the children, Mrs. Hammond and the nurse, all
spent a merry afternoon in the hay-field ; Carrie
had rides on a real live horse, and even Trot
was held for a few minutes on one of their
broad backs, and jogged along for a little way
in front of the cart. It was very hot, hot enough
to please the farmers, who were longing for
sunshine to bring on the grain crops and dry the
land, which was sodden and heavy with moisture ;
but the sun, that ripened the corn and saved the
turnips from rotting as they stood, drew misty
clouds of deadly vapours from the evil pools and
brimming cess-pits which lurked about in hidden
corners of the crowded towns. The very cause
which might have been their salvation was now
the destruction of the inhabitants. Enough rain had |
fallen to have cleansed away pollution from drains
and sewers, and washed them pure, had but a fair
chance been given to it; but though the cry had
been raised that something ought to be done,
nothing had been done, and God’s rain, which
would have washed away the filth, was kept im-
prisoned in stagnant holes, and choked up ditches
tillit filled them to the brim ; and then charged with
impurity, found for itself new channels, creeping
slowly under cottage-floors and winding down alleys
and courts in slowly oozing streams of deadly filth.
And now, when the sun came out, shedding hot
rays upon these little stagnant puddles and sluggish
currents, he drew out of every one of them a seed
of disease which fell here upon a strong man, there
upon a little child, now taking root in the houses
of the rich, now falling upon the dwellers in the |
courts and lanes where the poison was bred, but
every where bringing forth its bitter fruit of misery |
and death.

Little did Winnie know of what was going on in
the streets of Dudley, as she sat in the hay-field
when the last load was drawn, and the children
had gone in to tea. The west wind was blowing
softly across her face and lifting her hair with a
gentle touch, but her eyes wore an anxious look

a aS =