Strong sunshine glared upon the oversaling tiles, and white buckled walls, and cracky lintels; but nothing showed life, except an old yellow cat, and a pair of house-martins, who had scarcely time to breathe, such a number of little heads flipped out with a white flap under the beak of each, demanding momentous victualling.

At these the yellow cat winked with dreamy joyfulness, well aware how fat they would be when they came to tumble out.
"What a place of vile laziness!" grumbled Mr.Mordacks, as he got off his horse, after vainly shouting "Hostler!" and led him to the byre, which did duty for a stable.

"York is a lazy hole enough, but the further you go from it, the lazier they get.

No energy, no movement, no ambition, anywhere.

What a country! what a people! I shall have to go back and enlist the washer-women." A Yorkshireman might have answered this complaint, if he thought it deserving of an answer, by requesting Master Mordacks not to be so overquick, but to bide a wee bit longer before he made so sure of the vast superiority of his own wit, for the long heads might prove better than the sharp ones in the end of it.