"Like enough. He don't know which side his bread is buttered, he don't."
"His bread?" said another, an old road-mender, with a scornful dig of emphasis. "His old mother's, you mean. Don't you notice as folks as eat other folks' bread, and earn none for theirselves, never knows no more nor babbies which side the butter is on?"
"Hold your tongue, Luke Sturgis!" said the old woman. "Mayhap you think it's you're pint of half-and-half as keeps us all out of the union."
"Now you're a-goin' to get wexed, Mrs. Drayton. So wot's to prevent me having another pint, just to get that fine son of yourn an extra cigar or so. Hold hard with the pewter, though. I'll drain off what's left, if convenient."
A drowsy-eyed countryman, with a dog snoring at his feet, said:
"Been to Lunnon again," and pointed the shank of his pipe in the direction of the sleeping man. "Got the Lunnon smell on his clothes. I allus knows it forty perches off."
"You're wrong, then, Mr. Wiseman," said the old woman, "and he ain't got no smell of no Lunnon on his clothes this day, anyways. For he's been where there ain't no smell no more nor in Hendon, leastways unless the mount'ins smells and the cataracks and the sheeps."
"The mount'ins? And has Master Paul been along of the mount'ins?"
"Yes; Cummerland, that's the mountains, and fur off, too, I've heerd."
"Cummerland? Ain't that the part as the young missy comes from?"