"There's nobody in the place durst come and help us," he said, "time them tue others is out a' work; they wouldn't leave 'em alone, not a minute. That's only a stranger we can hev now, as matters are, and he hadn't northin' ter due with the strike."
"Who do you think had then?" asked the vicar, little expecting so prompt a reply.
"Why, that scum Corkam!" asserted Martin stoutly. "He's at th' bottom a' most a' these here messes, he is! He goes a-talkin' ar a lot o' rubbidge about 'Meriky (as I don't believe he ever landed on), and he tell 'em a sight o' stories about the big wages over there, and he don't say northin' about the house rent they have to pay, nor the price o' wittles, nor clothin', which I know ('cos my brother lived out in them parts for years) don't leave them not sa very much over for theirselves to due what they like with arter all. And they've got ter goo and leave the old place and their friends and relations, and work a sight harder fur their money than we due here."
"Just so, that's just it, Martin," said the vicar. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Corkam has got a little knowledge--a smattering of facts about many countries; but he is like a parrot--he repeats what he has been told, and has never gone into the subject himself,--not had the chance, most likely."
"You're right, sir; that's about the size on it! And them chaps on the bridge of an evenin', they'll swaller anythin' he like tue tell 'em. That there young Lummis---"
"Oh, George Lummis! Yes, poor fellow, it's heartbreaking to see him idling away his whole life like that. But somehow I fancy George will break loose one of these days. One day Master Corkam will tell him something he can't swallow, or offend his sense of right and wrong, for there's nothing really bad about Geo--at present, at any rate. I still have hopes of Geo, and I hear he is making an excellent nurse to his mother."
In speaking thus the vicar was not talking at random. He had for some time past been unaccountably interested in Geo. To his keen sight--lazy, good-for-nothing as he appeared--Geo was full of possibilities. There came into the young fellow's sleepy, handsome face a look sometimes that made you fancy that under certain circumstances he might rise even to some great height of heroism.