Page:Yeast. A Problem - Kingsley (1851).djvu/99

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AN 'INGLORIOUS MILTON.'
83

'Are the poor very immoral, then?'

'You ask the rector, sir, how many children hereabouts are born within six months of the wedding-day. None of them marry, sir, till the devil forces them. There's no sadder sight than a labourer's wedding now-a-days. You never see the parents come with them. They just get another couple, that are keeping company, like themselves, and come sneaking into church, looking all over as if they were ashamed of it—and well they may be!'

'Is it possible?'

'I say, sir, that God makes you gentlemen, gentlemen, that you may see into these things. You give away your charities kindly enough, but you don't know the folks you give to. If a few of you would but be like the blessed Lord, and stoop to go out of the road, just behind the hedge, for once, among the publicans and harlots! Were you ever at a country fair, sir? Though I suppose I am rude for fancying that you could demean yourself to such company.'

'I should not think it demeaning myself,' said Lancelot, smiling; 'but I never was at one, and I should like for once to see the real manners of the poor.'

'I'm no haunter of such places myself, God knows; but—I see you're in earnest now—will you come with me, sir,—for once? for God's sake, and the poor's sake?

'I shall be delighted.'

'Not after you've been there, I am afraid.'

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