Dree on us wor a gooin' to shutt 'ee, till us zeed how fat thee waz, Jan." '"Lor now, Bill!" I answered 'un, wi' a girt cold swat upon me: "shutt me, Bill; and my own waife niver drame of it!"' Here John Fry looked round the kitchen; for he had never said anything of the kind, I doubt; but now made it part of his discourse, from thinking that Mistress Fry was come, as she generally did, to fetch him.
'Wull done then, Jan Vry,' said the woman, who had entered quietly, but was only our old Molly.

'Wutt handsome manners thee hast gat, Jan, to spake so well of thy waife laike; after arl the laife she leads thee!' 'Putt thee pot on the fire, old 'ooman, and bile thee own bakkon,' John answered her, very sharply: 'nobody no raight to meddle wi' a man's bad ooman but himzell.

Wull, here was all these here men awaitin', zum wi' harses, zum wi'out; the common volk wi' long girt guns, and tha quarlity wi' girt broad-swords.

Who wor there?
Whay latt me zee.

There wor Squire Maunder,' here John assumed his full historical key, 'him wi' the pot to his vittle-place; and Sir Richard Blewitt shaking over the zaddle, and Squaire Sandford of Lee, him wi' the long nose and one eye, and Sir Gronus Batchildor over to Ninehead Court, and ever so many more on 'em, tulling up how they was arl gooin' to be promoted, for kitching of Tom Faggus.
'"Hope to God," says I to myzell, "poor Tom wun't coom here to-day: arl up with her, if 'a doeth: and who be there to suckzade 'un ?" Mark me now, all these charps was good to shutt 'un, as her coom crass the watter; the watter be waide enow there and stony, but no deeper than my knee-place.
'"Thee cas'n goo no vurder," Bill Blacksmith saith to me: "nawbody 'lowed to crass the vord, until such time as Faggus coom; plaise God us may mak sure of 'un." '"Amen, zo be it," says I; "God knoweth I be never in any hurry, and would zooner stop nor goo on most taimes." 'Wi' that I pulled my vittles out, and zat a horsebarck, atin' of 'em, and oncommon good they was.