"No," replied the clergyman.
"Why, look yer 'ere," said the miner, showing the shoulders of his singlet. "It's a bit dry now, but it's wet as a clout with sweat even yet. Feel it."
"Goodness!" cried Mrs. Morel. "Mr. Heaton doesn't want to feel your nasty singlet."
The clergyman put out his hand gingerly.
"No, perhaps he doesn't," said Morel; "but it's all come out of me, whether or not. An' iv'ry day alike my singlet's wringin' wet. 'Aven't you got a drink, Missis, for a man when he comes home barkled up from the pit?"
"You know you drank all the beer," said Mrs. Morel, pouring out his tea.
"An' was there no more to be got?" Turning to the clergyman--"A man gets that caked up wi' th' dust, you know,--that clogged up down a coal-mine, he NEEDS a drink when he comes home."
"I am sure he does," said the clergyman.
"But it's ten to one if there's owt for him."
"There's water--and there's tea," said Mrs. Morel.
"Water! It's not water as'll clear his throat."
He poured out a saucerful of tea, blew it, and sucked it up through his great black moustache, sighing afterwards. Then he poured out another saucerful, and stood his cup on the table.
"My cloth!" said Mrs. Morel, putting it on a plate.
"A man as comes home as I do 's too tired to care about cloths," said Morel.
"Pity!" exclaimed his wife, sarcastically.
The room was full of the smell of meat and vegetables and pit-clothes.
He leaned over to the minister, his great moustache thrust forward, his mouth very red in his black face.
"Mr. Heaton," he said, "a man as has been down the black hole all day, dingin' away at a coal-face, yi, a sight harder than that wall--"
"Needn't make a moan of it," put in Mrs. Morel.
She hated her husband because, whenever he had an audience, he whined and played for sympathy. William, sitting nursing the baby, hated him, with a boy's hatred for false sentiment, and for the stupid treatment of his mother. Annie had never liked him; she merely avoided him.
When the minister had gone, Mrs. Morel looked at her cloth.
"A fine mess!" she said.
"Dos't think I'm goin' to sit wi' my arms danglin', cos tha's got a parson for tea wi' thee?" he bawled.