"Know it? Know my own lad! I'd pick him out among a thousand."
"I'm not so sure o' that," persisted her daughter. "Ye've seen our Will lately, I s'pose, mester? Can ye tell us what like he is?"
"He's rather like me," said the stranger.
"My word, ye don't say so!" gasped Mrs. Whiteside, while her mother, leaning forward, gazed eagerly into his face.
"He is very like me," he said brokenly, and then, of a sudden, stretching out his hand he plucked the old woman by the sleeve: "Wakken up, mother," he cried; "mother, 'tis time to wakken up!"
As a rule our Lancashire peasants are not sentimental; in fact, degenerate south-countrymen frequently take exception to their blunt ways and terrible plain-speaking. But occasionally they display an astonishing impressibility, and at all times know how to appreciate a bit of romance.
When three months after his wife's death, for instance, Joe Balshaw married her cousin, because, as he explained, "hoo favoured our Mary," all the neighbours thought such fidelity extremely touching.
I remember once when our little church was gaily decorated for the harvest festival some one had the happy thought of placing among the garlands of flowers and masses of fruit and vegetables—thank-offerings from various parishioners—which were heaped on each side of the chancel, a miniature hayrick beautifully made and thatched, and a tiny cornstack to correspond. The sermon was over, and the service proceeding as usual, when suddenly a burst of sobs distracted the congregation, and Robert Barnes, the bluffest and burliest farmer in the whole property, was observed to be wiping his eyes with a red cotton handkerchief. In vain did his scandalised wife nudge and reprove him; he sobbed on, and she grew alarmed. "Wasn't he well?" she asked.