The dalesmen looked after his retreating figure, and as the door of the inner room closed, they heard his metallic voice ask if the deceased had judiciously arranged his temporal affairs.
During the encounter between the weaver and the clergyman the company had outwardly observed a rigid neutrality.

Little Liza, it is true, had obviously thought it all the best of good fun, and had enjoyed it accordingly.

She had grinned and giggled just as she had done on the preceding Sunday when a companion, the only surviving child of Baptist parents now dead, had had the water sprinkled on her face at her christening in the chapel on the Raise.

But Luke Cockrigg, Reuben Thwaite, and the rest had remained silent and somewhat appalled.

The schoolmaster had felt himself called upon to participate in the strife, but being in the anomalous position of owing his official obligations to the minister and his convictions to the side championed by the weaver, he had contented him with sundry grave shakes of his big head, which shakes, being subject to diverse interpretations, were the least compromising expressions of opinion which his genius could suggest to him.