“Ess, I do—for a very stiff-necked man.”
“Maybe ’t is so; but a gude faither to me.”
“An’ a gude friend to me, for that matter. He aint got nothing ’gainst me, anyway—no more ’s any man living.”
“Awnly the youth and fieriness of ’e.”
“Me fiery! I lay you wouldn’t find a cooler chap in Chagford.”
“You ’m a dinky bit comical-tempered now and again, dear heart.”
He flushed, and the corners of his jaw thickened.
“If a man was to say that, I’d knock his words down his throat.”
“I knaw you would, my awn Will; an’ that’s bein’ comical-tempered, ban’t it?”
“Then perhaps I’d best not to see your faither arter all, if you ’m that way o’ thinkin’,” he answered shortly.