Howsever, neither o' ye have heard it, so ye're the luckier that I tell it better by frequent repetition.

Here it is:-- "I was a collier lad, always lean, and not well favoured, though I was active and strong.

I was small, too, and that set my father's heart agin me somewhat, for he was a gran' man, and a mighty fighter.
"But my elder brother Jack, he was a mighty fellow, God bless him; and when he was eighteen he weighed twelve stone, and was earning man's wages, tho' that I was hurrying still.

I saw that father loved him better than me, and whiles that vexed me, but most times it didn't, for I cared about the lad as well as father did, and he liked me the same.
He never went far without me; and whether he fought, or whether he drunk, I must be wi' him and help.
"Well, so we went on till, as I said, I was seventeen, and he eighteen.
We never had a word till then; we were as brothers should be.

But at this time we had a quarrel, the first we ever had; ay, and the last, for we got something to mind this one by.
"We both worked in the same pit.