“I hope as you'll excuse it, miss, for I knows the place do smell terrible bad of baccer; only my old man he said as how-”
“Oh, never mind, we don't care at all about the smell. Poor Simon! I'm sure if it does him any good, or soothes the pain, I shall be glad to buy him some tobacco myself.”
The old man was lying on the bed, with his coat and boots off, and a worsted nightcap of his wife's knitting pulled on to his head. She had tried hard to get him to go to bed at once, and take some physic, and his present costume and position was the compromise. His back was turned to them as they entered, and he was evidently in pain, for he drew his breath heavily and with difficulty, and gave a sort of groan at every respiration. He did not seem to notice their entrance; so his wife touched him on the shoulder, and said, “Simon, here's the young ladies come to see how you be.”
Simon turned himself round, and winced and groaned as he pulled off his nightcap in token of respect.
“We didn't like to go home without coming to see how you were, Simon. Has the doctor been?”
“Oh, yes, thank'ee, miss. He've a been and feel'd un all over, and listened at the chest on un,” said his wife.
“And what did he say?”
“He zem'd to zay as there wur no bwones bruk—ugh, ugh,” put in Simon, who spoke his native tongue with a buzz, imported from farther west, “but a couldn't zay wether or no there warn't som infarnal injury-”
“Etarnal, Simon, etarnal!” interrupted his wife; “how canst use such words afore the young ladies?”
“I tell'ee wife, as 'twur infarnal—ugh, ugh,” retorted the gardener.