“You do——” said the father, turning to me, “you stay in one place, generation after generation, and you seem to get proud, an’ look on things outside as foolishness. There’s many a thing as any common man knows, as we haven’t a glimpse of. We keep on thinking and feeling the same, year after year, till we’ve only got one side; an’ I suppose they’ve done it before us.”
“It’s ‘Good-night an’ God bless you,’ to th’ owd place, granfeythers an’ grammothers,” laughed George as he ran upstairs—“an’ off we go on the gallivant,” he shouted from the landing.
His father shook his head, saying:
“I can’t make out how it is, he’s so different. I suppose it’s being in love——”
We went into the barn to get the bicycles to cycle over to Greymede. George struck a match to look for his pump, and he noticed a great spider scuttle off into the corner of the wall, and sit peeping out at him like a hoary little ghoul.
“How are you, old chap?” said George, nodding to him—“Thought he looked like an old grandfather of mine,” he said to me, laughing, as he pumped up the tyres of the old bicycle for me.
It was Saturday night, so the bar parlour of the Ram Inn was fairly full.
“Hello, George—come co’tin’?” was the cry, followed by a nod and a “Good evenin’,” to me, who was a stranger in the parlour.
“It’s raïght for thaïgh,” said a fat young fellow with an unwilling white mustache, “—tha can co’te as much as ter likes ter ’ae, as well as th’ lass, an’ it costs thee nöwt——” at which the room laughed, taking pipes from mouths to do so. George sat down, looking round.
“’Owd on a bit,” said a black-whiskered man, “tha mun ’a ’e patience when to ’t co’tin’ a lass. Ow’s puttin’ th’ owd lady ter bed—’ark thee—can t’ ear—that wor th’ bed latts goin’ bang. Ow’ll be dern in a minnit now, gie ’er time ter tuck th’ owd lady up. Can’ ter ’ear ’er say ’er prayers.”