Life And Sayings Of Mrs. Partington And Others Of The Family

We were again in the fields, on the way there he gave me a long account of how old Sarah used to wink at his having the field-girls; and indeed I had often heard him tell it. “You tell him you would like any one, and see what will come of it.” There was a pretty sun-burnt girl about fifteen years of age that had given me a cock-stand. “That's a pretty girl Smith, I'd give a sovereign to have her, — is she loose?” “Don't think so yet squire, she be skittish; her sister's not fourteen, and they say she be in the family way, when one sister takes to it squire, the others generally do.” “Where do you pay their wages?” I asked. The old fellow leered at me. “Why you be a taken a leaf out of young squire's book sir (it was Fred's advice); I pays them next at the root-stores”, a shed about a quarter of a mile from the farm-yard, and in which he had a desk. The women waited outside the shed, each being called in and paid in succession. They were paid every night, excepting in hay-making times. At pay time I strolled into the shed. One by one he paid ...»