With this end in view he left them and poked old Malpas, who had now relapsed into a state of nodding imbecility, in the ribs. ‘Do you see that there gun, dad?’ he shouted.
Malpas stared vaguely.
‘Gun,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t you go telling me you don’t know what a gun is!’ He pointed to an old muzzle loader that hung above the hearth.
‘Oh, ay . . . gun!’ said Old Malpas blandly. Wigan Joe bent over him and began to declaim in his ear an endless, and, as it seemed, pointless story, of how he had once gone out with a friend to shoot crows; how he had seen a crow on a haystack on the parish boundary, and how his friend, after taking careful aim, had missed it. At this point he raised his voice still louder. ‘By gum, lad,’ I says, ‘you’re the first ever I knew that shot at a haystack and missed a parish!’ With the last words he gave the old man a hearty slap on the back, and Malpas collapsed into a feeble fit of laughter.
‘Shot at a haystack and missed a parish,’ the clogger repeated, roaring at his own joke, and presenting it to the company, who were now in a condition to laugh at anything.
At the same moment the door opened and Mrs Malpas entered. Joe steadied himself, the others were silent at the sight of her small, tragic figure, only the musical box continued to jangle out its tune and the old man to be shaken with equally mechanical chuckles. She did not speak, but took in the whole assembly with her eyes.
‘Evening, ma’am,’ said the clogger. ‘We’ve been giving the old gentleman a bit of a tune to liven him up like, and make him forget his troubles.’
Without answering, she stepped straight over to the musical box and pulled a lever that stopped it. Then she shook the shoulder of her husband, who had not yet realised her coming.
‘What’s up with you, dad?’ she cried. ‘Are you stark mad?’
‘It’s all right, mother,’ he replied feebly.