"Aye--hours ago." His wife dropped with a weary gesture upon a chair near
the fire. "Tammas, yo' know it's a queer thing awthegither! What are they
coomin' here for at all?"

"Well, master's coom into t' property, an' I'm thinkin' it's nobbut his
dooty to coom an' see it. It's two year sen he came into 't; an' he's
done nowt but tak' t' rents, an' turn off men, an' clutter up t' house
wi' boxes, iver sense. It's time, I'm thinkin', as he did coom an' luke
into things a bit."

Thomas rose from his knees, and stood warming himself at the fire, while
he looked pensively round him. He was as tired as his wife, and quite as
mistrustful of what might be before them; but he was not going to confess
it. He was a lean and gaunt fellow, blue-eyed and broad-shouldered, of a
Cumbria type commonly held to be of Scandinavian origin. His eye was a
little wandering and absent, and the ragged gray whiskers which
surrounded his countenance emphasized the slight incoherence of its
expression. Quiet he was and looked. But his wife knew him for one of
the most incurably obstinate of men; the inveterate critic moreover of
everything and every one about him, beginning with herself. This trait of
his led her unconsciously to throw most of her remarks to him into the
form of questions, as offering less target to criticism than other forms
of statement. As for instance:

"Tammas, did yo' hear me say what I'd gotten from Mr. Tyson?"

"Aye."

"That the mistress was an Eye-talian."