"But 'twas Joe had most to do with him.

However, my son William must have knowed the very man afore us--didn't ye, Billy, afore ye left Norcombe ?" "No, 'twas Andrew," said Jacob's son Billy, a child of forty, or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of possessing a cheerful soul in a gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assuming a chinchilla shade here and there.
"I can mind Andrew," said Oak, "as being a man in the place when I was quite a child." "Ay--the other day I and my youngest daughter, Liddy, were over at my grandson's christening," continued Billy.

"We were talking about this very family, and 'twas only last Purification Day in this very world, when the use-money is gied away to the second-best poor folk, you know, shepherd, and I can mind the day because they all had to traypse up to the vestry--yes, this very man's family." "Come, shepherd, and drink.

'Tis gape and swaller with us--a drap of sommit, but not of much account," said the maltster, removing from the fire his eyes, which were vermilion-red and bleared by gazing into it for so many years.

"Take up the God-forgive-me, Jacob.