"Faith, sor, but one'd think ye had a down on him!" his Cox'n wryly commented.
"Of long standing, hah!" Lewrie told him with a barking laugh. He took the risk to his hat and hair and stuck his head out the coach window once more, looking back at the brick-works and tannery, grimacing with displeasure to see the steam and stinks rising from them like a pall of spent gunpowder from a two-decker's broadside, hazing off to a flat-topped cloud that slowly drifted eastward.
God help us, does the wind change, he thought, just as a glob of muddy slush plopped against his cheek from the front wheel, eliciting a snarl that had more to do with the new-come industries. He swabbed the muck off with his wool scarf and sat back as he noted several new brick cottages on the left of the road that hadn't been there before, where once there had been a common-shared pasture before the Enclosure Acts that had taken away poor cottagers' grazing and vegetable plot rights, and turned so many from hand-to-mouth self-sufficient to common day labourers on others' farms, or driven them to the cities, where the new manufacturies might employ them. At least the dozen or so cottages were on decent plots of land, picket-fenced, with wee truck gardens and decorative flower beds. They were substantial-looking, well-painted, with flower boxes at each window sill, and in the Spring might appear quite pleasant, he decided.