CHAPTER V.
"Hout, man! what signifies repeynin',
Owr grankin', snifteran', twistin', tweynin',
If down leyfe's hill we be decleynin',
We cannot slack,
Then gang on decent without wheynin',
Or hingin' back.
Leyfe, mak' the best on't 's nowght owr pleesin',
As every day some fash comes teasin',
An' oft eneugh the wheels want greesin'
To keep them ga'un,
Then brouce about nor tek sec preesin'
To nate our awn."
The New Year's Epistle.
"There's sic a gang in our town,
The deevil cannot wrang them,
And cud yen gat 'em put i' prent
Aw England cuddent bang them.
Cheat who cheat can's the common rule,
Fwoaks a' cheat yen anither;
For he that's nowther kneave or fuol,
God seake! what brought him hither."
Mr. Sandboys, when he had time for reflection, began to see that
he was very unpleasantly situated. The circumstances against him
he was obliged to confess, when he came to review them judicially,
did look particularly black.
In the first place, as he said to himself, he had not only been detected travelling without a ticket, and without money; but, what he felt was equally suspicious, without so much as a box, bag, or parcel among the whole half-dozen members of his family. If he accounted for the possession of the counterfeit coin and notes by declaring that he had been imposed upon, still, how was he satisfactorily to explain to any unprejudiced mind that combination of mischances that had deprived him of his luggage?
Then, supposing, he went on arguing with himself, he could sufficiently prove his innocence to the authorities, to induce them to abandon the charge against him, what was to become of him?—in a strange town, without a friend, without a shilling—or without a change of linen for himself or any of the miserable members of the wretched family that looked up to him for protection.
If he escaped the prison, there was nothing that he could see left for him but the workhouse; and, unsophisticated as he was, still he was man of the world enough to know that the workhouse was much the worse of the two.
"Waistomea! Waistomea!" he inwardly ejaculated, as he thought of his many troubles.
