“‘Well, I come here to have a look at his grave,’ says the young chap. ‘’Twas a notion I had.’
“‘Let me see,’ says I, turnin’ round to look at ’en as I were a-climbin’ into the cart, for Whitefoot was hitched by this time, ‘let me see who mid you be then? Wold Taylor had nigh upon farty grandchildren—I heard ’en say so many a time.’
“‘Oh, I’m one of Abel’s lot,’ says he; ‘Abel Taylor was my father’s name. He emigrated wi’ half a dozen of us when I was a little lad no higher than the shaft there; my name is Jim Taylor. I have spent most of my life in the States; I scarce call myself a Britisher now,’ says he.
“‘Dear, to be sure,’ says Mrs. Mayne, what was a-standin’ by, ‘’tis very sad for to hear ye say that, Mr. Taylor. Ye must feel very mournful havin’ to live out abroad.’
“‘I don’t know that,’ says he. He was a honest, good-natured-lookin’ chap, but when he says ‘I don’t know that’ he looked real melancholy. There; ye’d think some awful misfortune had happened. ‘I don’t know that,’ he says; ‘there’s good and bad all over the world, and there’s as much bad as good in England, I guess.’
“He had a funny way o’ talking: ‘I guess,’ he says, meanin’ for to say ‘I d’ ’low’.
“They was all in the cart by this time, an’ Whitefoot was a-trottin’ out so brisk as could be. He was a young mare then, and ’twas a Tuesday, as I say, an’ he knowed he’d have only the empties to carry along.
“Wold Maria Robbins was a-sittin’ jist behind Jim Taylor—a great talker she was, al’ays ready to gossip about her neighbours. She did sit a-starin’ an’ a-starin’ at this here Jim Taylor till I reckon he felt her eyes fixed on ’en, for he turns round smilin’ wi’ some talk about the weather. But ’twasn’t the weather as Maria did want to be talkin’ on.
“‘I’m sorry, Mr. Taylor,’ says she, ‘as you’ve a-been disappointed like in your country,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry England didn’t come up to your expectations.’
“He laughed and began pulling at his girt brown beard.