t say what I bain't fit for, hey?"

"Couldst sign the book, no doubt," said Fairway, "if wast young enough
to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and Mis'ess Tamsin,
which is more than Humph there could do, for he follows his father in
learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy
father's mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name.
He and your mother were the couple married just afore we were and
there stood they father's cross with arms stretched out like a great
banging scarecrow. What a terrible black cross that was--thy father's
very likeness in en! To save my soul I couldn't help laughing when I
zid en, though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the
marrying, and what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack
Changley and a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window.
But the next moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I
called to mind that if thy father and mother had had high words once,
they'd been at it twenty times since they'd been man and wife, and I
zid myself as the next poor stunpoll to get into the same
mess... Ah--well, what a day 'twas!"

"Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a goodfew summers. A
pretty maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to
tear her smock for a man like that."

The speaker, a peat or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group,
carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large
dimensions used in that species of labour; and its well-whetted edge
gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.

"A hundred maidens would have had him if he'd asked 'em," said the
wide woman.

"Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would marry?"
inquired Humphrey.

"I never did," said the turf-cutter.

"Nor I," said another.

"Nor I," said Grandfer Cantle.

"Well, now, I did once," said Timothy Fairway, adding more firmness
to one of his legs. "I did know of such a man. But only once, mind."
He gave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it were the duty of
every person not to be mistaken through thickness of voice. "Yes, I
knew of such a man," he said.

"And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been like,
Master Fairway?" asked the turf-cutter.

"Well, 'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man.
What 'a was I don't say."

"Is he known in these parts?" said Olly Dowden.

"Hardly," said Timothy; "but I name