David ceased throwing, and Louie, crossing her feet and steadying herself as she sat on the topmost bar of the gate by a grip on either side, leant hard on her hands and watched her uncle in silence.

When caught unawares by their elders, these two had always something of the air of captives defending themselves in an alien country.
'Wal, Davy, did tha have Mr.Ancrum in school ?' began Reuben, affecting a brisk manner, oddly unlike him.
'Naw.

It wor Brother Winterbotham from Halifax, or soom sich name.' 'Wor he edifyin, Davy ?' 'He wor--he wor--a leather-yed,' said David, with sudden energy, and, taking up a stone again, he flung it at a tree trunk opposite, with a certain vindictiveness as though Brother Winterbotham were sitting there.
'Now, yo're not speakin as yo owt, Davy,' said Reuben reprovingly, as he puffed away at his pipe and felt the pleasantness of the spring sunshine which streamed down into the lane through the still bare but budding branches of the sycamores.
'He _wor_ a leather-yed,' David repeated with emphasis.

'He said it wor Alexander fought t' battle o' Marathon.' Reuben was silent for a while.

When tests of this kind were going, he could but lie low.