From the old weaver's house in "Coal Yard" we went to a place close
by, called "Castle Yard," one of the most unwholesome nooks I have
seen in Wigan yet, though there are many such in that part of the
town. It was a close, pestilent, little cul de sac, shut in by a
dead brick wall at the far end. Here we called upon an Irish family,
seven in number. The mother and two of her daughters were in. The
mother had sore eyes. The place was dirty, and the air inside was
close and foul. The miserable bits of furniture left were fit for
nothing but a bonfire. "Good morning, Mrs K_," said my friend, as we
entered the stifling house; "how are you geting on?" The mother
stood in the middle of the floor, wiping her sore eyes, and then
folding her hands in a tattered apron; whilst her daughters gazed
upon us vacantly from the background. "Oh, then," replied the woman,
"things is worse wid us entirely, sir, than whenever ye wor here
before. I dunno what will we do whin the winter comes." In reply to
me, she said, "We are seven altogether, wid my husband an' myself. I
have one lad was ill o' the yallow jaundice this many months, an'
there is somethin' quare hangin' over that boy this day; I dunno
whatever shall we do wid him.
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