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Hollow's Cottage Moores good spirits were still with him when he rose next morning. He and Joe Scott had both spent the night in the mill, availing themselves of certain sleeping accommodations producible from recesses in the front and back counting-houses; the master, always an early riser, was up somewhat sooner even than usual; he awoke his man by singing a French song as he made his toilet. Yere not custen dahn, then, maister? cried Joe. Not a stiver, mon garconwhich means, my lad. Get up, and well take a turn through the mill before the hands come in, and Ill explain my future plans. Well have the machinery yet, Joseph; you never heard of Bruce, perhaps? And th arrand (spider)? Yes, but I hev; Ive read th history o Scotland, and happen knaw as mich ont as ye; and I understand ye to mean to say yell persevere. I do. Is there mony o your mak i your country? inquired Joe as he folded up his temporary bed, and put it away. In my country! Which is my country? Why, France, isnt it? Not it, indeed. The circumstance of the French having seized Antwerp, where I was born, does not make me a Frenchman. Holland, then? I am not a Dutchman; now you are confounding Antwerp with Amsterdam? Flanders? I scorn the insinuation, Joe. I, a Flamand! Have I a Flemish face?the clumsy nose standing out, the mean forehead falling back, the pale blue eyes \dg\a fleur de t\ec\te? Am I all body and no legs, like a Flamand? But you dont know what they are likethose Netherlanders. Joe, Im an Anversois; my mother was an Anversoise, though she came of French lineage, which is the reason I speak French. But your father war Yorkshire, which maks ye a bit Yorkshire too; and onybody may see yere akin to us, yere so keen o making brass and getting forrards. Joe, youre an impudent dog; but Ive always been accustomed to a boorish sort of insolence from my youth up: the classe ouvri\dg\ere that is, the working people in Belgiumbear themselves brutally towards their employers; and by brutally, Joe, I mean brutalement which, perhaps, when properly translated, should be roughly. We allus speak our minds i this country, and them young parsons and grand folk fro London is shocked at wer incivility, and we like weel enough to gie em summat to be shocked at, cause its sport to us to watch em turn up the whites o their een, and spreed out their bits o hands, like as theyre flayed wi bogards, and then to hear em say, nipping off their words short like Dear! dear! Whet seveges! How very corse! You are savages, Joe; you dont suppose youre civilized, do you? Middling, middling, maister. I reckon at us manufacturing lads i the north is a deal more intelligent, and knaws a deal more nor th farming folk i th south. Trade sharpens wer wits; and them thats mechanics, like me, is forced to think. Ye know, what wi looking after machinery, and sich like, Ive getten into that |
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