But not he. He merely remarked wonderingly: "You wouldn't ha'
thought it possible he could ha' done it, would ye?" The other wayfarers
laughed lightly, amongst them a young married woman with a refined face.

While the comic side of a man in drink makes its strong appeal to the
village folk, they are ready to see excuses for him, too. Anybody, they
argue, is liable to be overtaken before he knows, and where is the great
disgrace in an accident that may befall themselves, or me, or you?
There is at least no superiority in their outlook, no pharisaism.
Listen, for proof of it, to a talk of Bettesworth's about a neighbour
who had been working with the "ballast-train" on the railway all night.
"You," he began--and this first word showed how innocent he was of shame
in his own attitude, since he supposed that I must share his
amusement--"you'd ha' laughed if you'd ha' sin Isaac yest'day. He was
got fair boozed; an' comin' up the gully, thinkin' he was goin' straight
for 'ome, he run his head right into they bushes down by ol' Dame
Smith's. Then he got up the slope about a dozen yards, an' begun to go
back'ards 'till he come to Dame Smith's wall, and that turn'd 'n, and he
begun to go back'ards again down the gully. I did laugh. He bin at work
all night on the ballast-train, an' come back reg'lar fagged out, an'
hadn't had no vittles--an' a feller _wants_ something--and then the fust
glass he has do's for 'n. He bin workin' every night for a week, an'
Sundays, too. And Alice" ("Alice" is Isaac's wife) "is away hop-tyin'
all day, so, of course, Isaac didn't care 'bout goin' 'ome to lop about
there by hisself.... I've seed a many go like that. They works all
night, an' gets reg'lar fagged out, an' then the fust drop does 'em.
When Alice come 'ome, she looked at least to find the kettle boilin'.
'Stead o' that, she couldn't git in. At least, she had to fetch the key
from where she put 'n when she went away in the mornin'. I laughed at
her when I went down 'ome. 'Where is he now?' I says. 'Ah, you may
laugh,' she says, 'but I got to rouse 'n up about ten o'clock an' git 'n
a cup o' tea. He got to be at work again at eleven.' That's how they
do's. Begins about ten or eleven o'clock, and don't leave off again
afore six or seven, or p'raps nine or ten, next mornin'. Makes days an'
quarters for three an' ninepence. I've knowed a many like that come 'ome
an' git boozed fust glass, like old Isaac. I did laugh, though, and so
did Dame S