"Ay sure, your honour," he said, "and to zee the match. You med think me too old; true, I be gone eighty; come Martinmas I shall be eighty-one, and I ha’n’t a wamblen tooth in my head—not one, old as I be. A man’s as old as he feels, says my boy—one o’ the wise sayens he has: I ha’n’t felt no older this twenty year, nay, nor twenty-vive year neither." "By George! I wish I could say the same. What’s the match, gaffer?" "Well, they do say ’tis for a wager; ’tis all ’I’ll lay ye this’ and ’I’ll lay ye that’ in these days. I don’t know the rights on’t, but ’tis said it all come about at a supper up at Squire’s.—Do ’ee know Squire? Eh well, there be the house, yonder among the trees. Squire’s son be hot wi’ his tongue, and at this same supper—I tell ’ee as I yeard it—he wagered young Master Godfrey of the Grange he’d bring eleven young gen’lmen from Cambridge college as would beat our village players at the cricket. A hunnerd guineas was the wager, so ’tis said. Master Godfrey he ups and says ’Done wi’ ’ee’, and so ’tis come about. The Cambridge younkers be all high gentry, every man on ’em; our folks, as your honour med see, be just or’nary folks in the main: there’s Long Robin the tanner and Lumpy the smith—he that turned topsy-turvy a-hunten the ball by there; and Honest John the miller: Old Everlasten they calls un, ’cause he never gets cotched out nor bowled neither: ay, a good stick is Old Everlasten, wi’ a tough skin of his own. And there be Soapy Dick the barber, and Tom cobbler, and more of the village folk; and the only gentry among ’em is Master Godfrey hisself and pa’son’s son, and he don’t count for gentry wi’ some. Do ’ee know pa’son? a good man, saven your honour, ay, a right good man is Pa’son Rochester, and stands up to old Squire like a game-cock, so he do—a right good man is pa’son, ay sure. And his son Harry—well, to tell ’ee the truth, I’m main fond of the lad; main fond; ’tis a well-favoured lad, well spoken too, and he thinks a deal o’ me, he do, and I thinks a deal o’ he. Why, ’twas he bowled that artful ball as put out t’ last man from Cambridge college.—There, my old tongue runs on; I don’t offend your honour?" "Not a whit," said my lord. "The young bowler is the parson’s son, eh? Bred for a parson too, I suppose?"