"If I thought so, ma'am," said Snuffles,
"I wouldn't give trust as I do. But I
know better. I wish I didn't. I don't say
but what they might manage better than
they do; but how is anybody to expect them
to try, try, try, when, after all their trying,
they will only come a step or two further on
the right road, without being able anyhow to
reach the end of it?  A man must have a
good hope, ma'am, or he can't do
anything; and, as things are, he can't never
hardly look forward to anything better, after
all his life and all his labour, than to die
at last and be buried under the name of a
pauper!"

At this point of the conversation, sensible
that it would have shocked and outraged all
the magnates in Lightlands, especially the
churchwardens, and feeling besides that it
was getting dangerously political in spite of
the old man's loyal and sound professions of
opinion, I made an opportunity of bidding
him good morning. Yet, after living some
years at Lightlands, I am afraid I became
almost as heretical as Snuffles himself.

Late one November afternoon, as I was
coming out of Mrs. Appleby's cottage, I
was astonished by the appearance of a long
ragged string of strange semi-civilised looking
beings, anomalously clad in sun-bonnets,
fustian coats, draggled  petticoats, and buskins,
advancing in irregular file up the muddy
village street. Being new to Lightlands
then, I was puzzled to make out whether
they were men, women, or gipsies. Tidy
little Mrs. Appleby did not enlighten my
mind much, when I asked what or which
they were, by replying,

"O, no! That's the gang, ma'am."

"The gang!" I repeated; "then they are
gipsies, only they don't look nearly as
picturesque or as pretty."

Mrs. Appleby smiled at my ignorance, and
said again:

"O, no, ma'am! that's the gang come
home from work. They ha' been toppin' and
tailin' all day, and nice, clean, tidy work that
is for labourin' people's wives and daughters,
all in the drizzlin' rain, too!"

Mrs. Appleby spoke indignantly, and I
began to have a dawning perception what
she meant by a gang—it is a term used in
the Lightlands district (and elsewhere, I am
told), to denominate the rough, coarse,
unhousewifely looking band of women employed
in field labour.

Mrs. Appleby, who was invariably called
Mrs. Applepie by her neighbours, and who,
when I asked her whether that was her real
name, smiled, and said:

"O, dear no, ma'am! only t'sound suffin'
like it, and t'dont singerfy:"

Mrs. Appleby looked so utterly unlike the
rough women then passing by her door—she
in her cleanly print gown and neat cap,
her smooth pretty hair, and bright wholesome
face, which always gave one the
notion that it had been scoured every day,
like her floors, kettles, and saucepans—they,
in their slovenly, slouched huddle of motley
garments, bespattered with mire and dirt,
which, in half  unsexing, wholly disguised,
them—that I could not reconcile to myself
the idea of her ever making one among the
wretched looking gang. Something proudly
she answered my hesitating question as to
whether she ever went out to field work?

"Never, ma'am! My John wouldn't like
to see his wife at such work, let alone all
that belong to it. And, to tell you the truth,
I shouldn't hardly know how to feel if he
did, for I wasn't brought up to it. One good
thing, he ain't azactly a labourer—a
shepherd's a little better, you know, ma'am—so,
please God, as long as he keep his place,
which I ain't no fear on at the present, I
shan't be obliged to go out to work."

"I hope you never will," I answered. "I
never saw a gang before, but I don't like the
look of one."

Here our little conversation ended; but
the matter remained long in my thoughts,
and my subsequent experiences respecting it,
and the conclusions that resulted from them,
never induced me to like the look of a gang
any better than at first.

I once remarked upon the subject to old
Mr. Oxley, one of the largest occupiers of land
in the parish; but he only laughed at my
notions, and said, "If I went among the poor
people, I mustn't mind a little dirt. They
live by the land, you see, Mrs. Turnover,"
added the old gentleman, "and a little of
the mud of it won't hurt 'em."

Old Mr. Oxley lives by the land too, I
thought, and lives a great deal better by it
than ever these poor creatures are likely to
do, let them get as muddy as they may.
But I did not utter this sentiment, though
I could not help answering; so I began:
"O! if it were only the mud, Mr. Oxley,"—
when by a look from my husband, who was
with me, I perceived that I was but losing
my breath, while at the same time Mr. Oxley
had begun to show signs of losing his temper;
so, feigning not to have noticed either
of these circumstances, my husband abruptly
changed the conversation. Afterwards, I
learnt that Mr. Oxley was the largest
employer of women in all Lightlands, for the
reason, that they were cheaper than men,
and he did not like parting with his money:
so it was not likely that my horror of
gangs would meet with much sympathy from
him.

As I am not at present addressing that old
gentleman, perhaps I may finish what I
began to say to him.

If it were only the mud, which these
women contract who go out to field-work, at
Lightlands, and other such places, it would,
indeed, as Mr. Oxley said, matter but little
—the picture they present might be, simply,
too dirty and dreary to be agreeable—if it