"True--'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to," said
Humphrey.

"Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called),
in the year four," chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, "I didn't know no
more what the world was like than the commonest man among ye. And now,
jown it all, I won't say what I bain't fit for, hey?"

"Couldst sign the book, no doubt," said Fairway, "if wast young enough
to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and Mis'ess Tamsin,
which is more than Humph there could do, for he follows his father in
learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy
father's mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name. He
and your mother were the couple married just afore we were and there
stood they father's cross with arms stretched out like a great banging
scarecrow. What a terrible black cross that was--thy father's very
likeness in en! To save my soul I couldn't help laughing when I zid en,
though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the marrying,
and what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack Changley
and a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window. But the next
moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I called to mind
that if thy father and mother had had high words once, they'd been at
it twenty times since they'd been man and wife, and I zid myself as the
next poor stunpoll to get into the same mess....Ah--well, what a day
'twas!"

"Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few summers. A pretty
maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to tear her
smock for a man like that."