'Shall have your nurse at me a-sayin' I'm a-upsettin' your little inside. Do you know who's a-comin' to-day?'
'No. Do tell me. Someone to the house?'
'It be Master Mortimer, the eldest son, who have been in furrin parts so long, him what hangs up in the hall along with the master. You've never seed him. He went off straight from school to India. He were a favourit' of mine were Master Mortimer.'
'And he's coming to-day? Oh, I do hope I shall see him.'
Bobby capered at the thought.
''Tis any time to-day may bring him. His ship comed in yester morn.'
'I wonder if he's seen my father anywheres.'
'Ah! Best ask of him. Master Mortimer be a merry young gen'leman, sure enough. But I reckon that time have sobered him!'
'Grown-up peoples aren't merry,' said the small boy, ''cept Sam Conway, when he's drunk!'
Sam Conway was the cobbler, who was the village drunkard. Tom shook his head reproachfully at the thought of him.