l hungry. Plodding along in a heavy,
uneven gait, there overtook him a tall, raw young lad of eighteen or
twenty, slouching forward with vast strides and whistling merrily. The
lad slackened his steps and joined company!

"Where bist thee working now, then?" asked Smith.

He replied, evidently in high spirits, that he had that day got a job at
the new railway that was making. The wages were 18s. a week--3s. a
day--and he had heard that as soon as the men grew to understand their
work and to be a little skilful, they could get 24s. easily, up by
London. The only drawback was the long walk to the work. Lodgings close
at hand were very dear, as also was food, so dear as to lower the actual
receipts to an equality, if not below that of the agricultural labourer.
Four miles every morning and every night was the price he paid for 18s.
a week.

Smith began in his slow, dull way to reckon up his wages aloud against
this. First he had 13s. a week for his daily work. Then he had 1s. extra
for milking on Sundays, and two good meals with beer on that day. Every
week-day he had a pint of beer on finishing work. The young navvy had to
find his own liquor. His cottage, it was true, was his own (that is, he
only paid a low quit-rent of 1s. a year for it), so that that could not
be reckoned in as part of his earnings, as it could with many other
men. But the navvy's wages were the same all the year round, while his
in summer were often nearly double. As a stalwart mower he could earn
25s. a week and more, as a haymaker 18s., and at harvesting perhaps 30s.
If the season was good, and there was a press for hands, he would get
more. But, looking forward, there was no prospect of rising higher in
his trade, of getting higher wages for more skilful work. He could not
be more skilful than he was in ordinary farm work; and as yet the call
for clever men to attend to machinery, &c., was very limited; nor were
such a class of workmen usually drawn from the resident population where
improvements were introduced. The only hope of higher wages that was
held out to him was from the gradual rise of everything, or the forced
rise consequent upon agitation. But, said he, the navvy must follow his
work from place to place, and lodgings are dear in the towns, and the
farmers in country places will not let their cottages except to their
own labourers--how was the navvy even with higher wages to keep a wife?
The aspiring young fellow beside him replied a