By way of answer she shut the door upon him and disappeared, and the Canvasser, not yet angry, marvelled at the ways of the Garden of Eden. In a few moments she was back again; she opened the door a little wider, just wide enough to let him come in, and said—
"Ye can see un: but he bain't my husband. He wor my sister's husband like." As she said this she kept her eyes fixed upon the stranger, noting every movement of his face and of his body, until she got him into the large old kitchen. There she put a chair for him, and he sat down.
He found himself opposite a very, very old man, much older than the old woman, sitting in a patched easy chair and staring merrily but fixedly at the fire.
The very, very old man said: "Marnin'."
There was a pause. The Canvasser felt nervous. The old, fat, but energetic woman, still scowling somewhat and still fixedly regarding the stranger, said—
"I do be tellin' of un you bain't my husband, you be poor Martha's husband that was. Ar!"
"Ar!" said the old man, by way of corroboration; and the smile—if it were a smile—upon his drawn and wrinkled face became more mysterious than ever.
The Canvasser coughed a little. "I've brought bad weather with me," he said, by way of opening the delicate conversation.
"Ar!" said the old man. "You ain't brought un nayther! Naw.... Bin ere a sennight com Vriday...." Then he added more reflectively, and as though he were already passing into another world, while he stared at the fire: "You ain't brought un nayther; naw!"
"Well," said the stranger gallantly, though a little put out, "I'm sure I should have been sorry to have brought it."