This was addressed to an aged man who had crawled up on two sticks. His legs, bent outwards—curved like the butt of a pistol—had obtained him this nickname.
“Nation dry weather,” said the ancient, lifting his head with some difficulty. “Gie me a drap.”
A labourer leaning against the elm handed him his quart.
“Ay, ay; thur bean’t no such ale as thur used to be;”—after he had taken his fill.
“I say, Gaffer,” said another fellow, a carter, who had left his horses by the drinking-trough—“I say, Gaffer Pistol-legs, how old bist thee?”
“Aw,” said the patriarch, shaking his head, “I be amazin’ old, I be. I be vourscore and five year come Christmas.”
“Warn you minds a main deal?”
“I minds when the new water-wheel wur put in Fisher’s mill.”
“When wur thuck?”
“Aw, about dree-score year ago.”