“Yes, yes. How do you earn your living?”
“Oh! I see what you mean. Well, when aw were a little un aw used to help mi mother to wind th’ bobbins, an’ mi feyther to sprinkle th’ wool wi’ lant—”
“Yes, yes, but what do you do now?”
“Aw’m a weiver, to be sewer. Aw’n gotten th’ same loom as mi owd father had, an’ it’s noan a foul loom yet, but it’s been weel done to. Yo’ see, there’s a deal o’ human natur’ i’ a loom, an’—”
“Quite so, quite so. And you are a worshipper at Pole Moor Chapel?”
“Aye, to be sewer aw am. Aw were dipped when aw were nobbut seventeen year owd, but with th’ conviction o’ sin full on me. Mi feyther, owd Sammy, yo’ll mind me tellin’ on him, were one o’ th’ founders o’ Pole Moor, an’ so when aw come to years o’ discretion—”
“Exactly, and you know the last witness?”
“Know him? Why, in course aw do. Aw’ve dandled him o’ mi knee an’ spanked him mony’s the time. Aw mind his mother, poor saint. Oo’s dead now, but aw can tell on her, too, if yo’re for speerin’.”
“No, no, Mr. Hoyle I’m certainly not for speering about the late Mrs. Holmes, a most worthy woman, no doubt.”
“Yo’ may say that, an’ n’er go back on it. Aw’n heerd say ’at ’tornies nivver speak th’ truth excep’ bi accident, but that’s Gospel truth, choose how. Aw mind when Mister Holmes browt her to th’ Powl, a slip o’ a lass, in a way o’ speikin’, an’ noan cut out for yar rough ways—a dainty bloom, yo’ may say, an’ sooin frost-bitten. Oo deed, poor soul, when Ruth were a babby.”