"Ah, my dear, ask me no questions and I tell 'ee no lies."
"'Ere, I'll take that," said Mrs. Tom, intervening, "I know where it got to be put. 'Tis what you told me of, S'bina?"
Mrs. Byron nodded. "Iss, I've brought it back wi' me. Doctor said I was maäze to do it; but I said I would, an' I 'av."
A meal was ready on the kitchen table, a piece of stout wood which had weathered the use and elbow-grease of more than a century. This room had been for three generations the gathering-place of the family. Innumerable savoury meals had been cooked on the slab range; hams in a succession longer than that of the Kings of England had been lifted from the rafter hooks and, after the buffetings of winter and the scorch of summer, men had taken their ease on the bench while women made and mended. Old tales had been told and retold by deep voices, tales of witches, of wreckers, of people 'pisky-led'n'; and the sound of them lingered in the dim corners. They were waiting for the new generation which should utter once more the familiar words and keep alive the traditions.
"I never thought I should ever be back 'ere any more," said Sabina, contentedly, as she ran her trolly up to the table and, by a contrivance similar to that on a dentist's chair, reduced her height to a sitting level. "It do seem good to be 'ome. Everything look so natural."
"Well, 'twould be funny if it didn't," said Mrs. Rosevear, helping the meat.
"Don't seem as if I'd been all that time away."
"I expect it do to Leadville."
His wife turned to him. "What do 'ee think of my invention?"
"I can't abide it," said the man, with the emphasis of sincere feeling.