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That lad's given 'em lots to talk about ever since he coom. He's been a blessin' to 'em. If he'd been gentry, he'd not ha' been nigh as lively. Th' village lads tries to talk through their noses like him. Little Tummas Hibblethwaite does it i' broad Lancashire."
Hibblethwaite from the other end of the room, to which she had returned after taking Miss Alicia out to complain about the copper in the "wash-'us' " "Tummas, tha'st been talkin' like a magpie. Tha'rt a lot too bold an' ready wi' tha tongue. Th' gentry's noan comin' to see thee if tha clacks th' heads off theer showthers."
A stout, apple-faced woman opened it, looking a shade nervous. "Good morning, Mrs. Hibblethwaite," said Miss Alicia in a kind but remote manner. "The new Mr. Temple Barholm has been kind enough to come to see you. It's very good of him to come so soon, isn't it?" "It is that," Mrs. Hibblethwaite answered respectfully, looking him over. "Wilt tha coom in, sir?"
He goes in to th' cottages now an' then, an' though a fool could see he does na know his place, nor other people's, he's downreet open-handed. An' he maks foak laugh. He took a lot o' New York papers wi' big pictures in 'em to little Tummas Hibblethwaite. An' wot does tha think he did one rainy day?
"I'm afraid he always does talk more than is good for him," said Miss Alicia. "He looks quite feverish." "He has been talking to me about Jem Temple Barholm," explained Tembarom. "We've had a regular chin together. He thinks a heap of poor Jem." Miss Alicia looked startled, and Mrs. Hibblethwaite was plainly flustered tremendously. She quite lost her temper.
"'Thank yo' kindly Mester Hibblethwaite, she says, 'but dunnot tak' off tha' coat fur me; I'm doin' pretty nicely. It is Mester Hibblethwaite, beant it? "'Aye, lass, I answers, 'it's him. Mought I ax yo're name. "'Aye, to be sure, said she. 'My name's Rosanna 'Sanna Brent th' folk at th' mill alius ca's me. I work at th' loom i' th' next room to thine. I've seed thee often an' often.
So in conversing with men, women, and children, I gradually found out that Tim Hibblethwaite was in bad odor, and that he held himself doggedly aloof from all; and this was how, in the course of time, I came to speak to him about the matter, and the opening words of my story are the words of his answer. But they did not satisfy me by any means.
He did not see me at first, and I was almost inclined to think it best to leave him alone; but as I half turned away he stirred with something like a faint moan, and then lifted his head and saw me standing in the bright, clear moonlight. "Who's theer?" he said. "Dost ta want owt?" "It is only Doncaster, Hibblethwaite," I returned, as I sprang over the low stone wall to join him.
I exclaimed, "I never knew that you were a married man, Tim." He dropped his head upon his hand again, still pulling nervously at the grass with the other. "Th' law says I beant, Mester," he answered in a painful, strained fashion. "I conna tell mysen what God-a'-moighty 'ud say about it." "I don't understand," I faltered; "you don't mean to say the poor girl never was your wife, Hibblethwaite."
I looked at the man's bent face quite curiously, and, judging from its rather heavy but still not unprepossessing outline, I could not really call it a bad face, or even a sulky one. And yet both managers and hands had given me a bad account of Tim Hibblethwaite. "Surly Tim," they called him, and each had something to say about his sullen disposition to silence, and his short answers.
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