“What’s the matter? Come to it, caan’t ’e?”
“No ill of the body—not to him or the fam’ly. An’ you must let me tell it out my awn way. Well, things bein’ same as they are, the bwoy caan’t hide it. Dammy! Theer’s patches in the coat of un now—neat sewed, I’ll grant ’e, but a patch is a patch; an’ when half a horse’s harness is odds an’ ends o’ rope, then you knaw wi’out tellin’ wheer a man be driving to. ’T is ’cordin’ to the poetry!—
“‘Out to elbows,
Out to toes,
Out o’ money,
Out o’ clothes.’
But—”
“Caan’t ’e say what’s happened, you chitterin’ auld magpie? I’ll go up village for the news in a minute. I lay ’tis knawn theer.”
“Ban’t I tellin’ of ’e? ’Tis like this. Will Blanchard’s been mixin’ a bit of chopped fuzz with the sheep’s meal these hard times, like his betters. But now I’ve seed hisself today, lookin’ so auld as Cosdon ’bout it. He was gwaine to the horse doctor to Moreton. An’ he tawld me to keep my mouth shut, which I’ve done for the most paart.”
“A little fuzz chopped fine doan’t hurt sheep.”
“Just so. ’Cause why? They aint got no ‘bibles’ in their innards; but he’ve gone an’ given it same way to the bullocks.”
“Gude God!”
“’Tis death to beasts wi’ ‘bibles.’ An’ death it is. The things caan’t eat such stuff’ cause it sticketh an’ brings inflammation. I seed same fule’s trick done wance thirty year ago; an’ when the animals weer cut awpen, theer ‘bibles’ was hell-hot wi’ the awfulest inflammation ever you heard tell of.”