“No, it isna,” replied Mr. Goyte. He spoke very slowly and deliberately, quietly, as if the soft pedal were always down in his voice. He looked at his daughter-in-law as she crouched, flushed and dark, before the peacock, which would lay its long blue neck for a moment along her lap. In spite of his grey moustache and thin grey hair, the elderly man had a face young and almost delicate, like a young man’s. His blue eyes twinkled with some inscrutable source of pleasure, his skin was fine and tender, his nose delicately arched. His grey hair being slightly ruffled, he had a debonair look, as of a youth who is in love. “We mun tell ’im it’s come,” he said slowly, and turning he called: “Alfred—Alfred! Wheer’s ter gotten to?” Then he turned again to the group. “Get up then, Maggie, lass, get up wi’ thee. Tha ma’es too much o’ th’ bod.” A young man approached, wearing rough khaki and kneebreeches. He was Danish looking, broad at the loins. “I’s come back then,” said the father to the son; “leastwise, he’s bin browt back, flyed ower the Griff Low.” The son looked at me. He had a devil-may-care bearing, his cap on one side, his hands stuck in the front pockets of his breeches. But he said nothing. “Shall you come in a minute, Master,” said the elderly woman, to me. “Ay, come in an’ ha’e a cup o’ tea or summat. You’ll do wi’ summat, carrin’ that bod. Come on, Maggie wench, let’s go in.” So we went indoors, into the rather stuffy, overcrowded living-room, that was too cosy, and too warm. The son followed last, standing in the doorway. The father talked to me. Maggie put out the tea-cups. The mother went into the dairy again. “Tha’lt rouse thysen up a bit again, now, Maggie,” the father-in-law said—and then to me: “’ers not bin very bright sin’ Alfred came whoam, an’ the bod flyed awee. ’E come whoam a Wednesday night, Alfred did. But ay, you knowed, didna yer. Ay, ’e comed ’a Wednesday—an’ I reckon there wor a bit of a to-do between ’em, worn’t there, Maggie?” He twinkled maliciously to his daughter-in-law, who was flushed, brilliant and handsome. “Oh, be quiet, father. You’re wound up, by the sound of you,” she said to him, as if crossly. But she could never be cross with him. “’Ers got ’er colour back this mornin’,” continued the father-in-law slowly. “It’s bin heavy weather wi’ ’er this last two days. Ay—’er’s bin northeast sin ’er seed you a Wednesday.” “Father, do stop talking. You’d wear the leg off an iron pot. I can’t think where you’ve found your tongue, all of a sudden,” said Maggie, with caressive sharpness. “Ah’ve found it wheer I lost it. Aren’t goin’ ter come in an’ sit thee down, Alfred?” But Alfred turned and disappeared.