to stumps in talking over a poor
fellow's ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes."

"Nine folks out of ten would own 'twas going too far to dance then, I
suppose?" suggested Grandfer Cantle.

"'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the mug
have been round a few times."

"Well, I can't understand a quiet ladylike little body like Tamsin
Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way," said Susan Nunsuch,
the wide woman, who preferred the original subject. "'Tis worse than the
poorest do. And I shouldn't have cared about the man, though some may
say he's good-looking."

"To give him his due he's a clever, learned fellow in his way--a'most as
clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought up to better things
than keeping the Quiet Woman. An engineer--that's what the man was, as
we know; but he threw away his chance, and so 'a took a public house to
live. His learning was no use to him at all."

"Very often the case," said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet how people
do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use to
make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names
now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot--what
do I say?--why, almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and elbows
upon."

"True--'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to," said
Humphrey.

"Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called),
in the year four," chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, "I didn't know no
more what the world was like than the commonest man among ye. And now,
jown it all, I won'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