"Thic' there's a stubbard apple you've got in your hand."
"Take your seats, please!"
The guard held the door while they shook hands again. "Charley" leaned
out at the window as our train began to move.
"Her comes from the zeccond 'spalier past the inyon-bed; al'ays the
vurst to raipen, thic' there tree."
The old fellow broke into something resembling a run as he followed
our carriage to shout--
"Turble bad zayson vur zaider!"
With that he halted at the end of the platform, and watched us out of
sight. His son flung himself on the seat with--I could have kicked him
for it--a deprecatory titter. Then he drew a long breath; but it was
twenty minutes before his blush faded, and he regained confidence to
ask me for another light.
Just eighteen months after I was travelling up to London in the Zulu
express. A large Fair Trade meeting had been held at Plymouth the
night before, and three farmers in the compartment with me were
discussing that morning's leader in the _Western Daily Mercury_. One
of them had already been goaded into violent speech when we halted at
Newton Abbot and another passenger stepped in--a little old man in a
suit of black.
I recognised him at once. And yet he was changed woefully. He had
fallen away in flesh; the lines had deepened beside his upper lip; and
in spite of a glossier suit he had an appearance of hopelessness which
he had not worn when I saw him for the first time.
He took his seat, looked about him vacantly and caught the eye of the
angry farmer, who nodded, broke off his speech in the middle of a
sentence, and asked in a curiously gentle voice--
"Travellin' up to Exeter?"
The old man bent his head for "yes," and I saw the tears well up in
his weak eyes.
"There's no need vur to ax your arrand." The farmer here dropped his
tone almost to a whisper.
"Naw, naw. I be goin' up to berry 'en. Ees, vriends," he went on,
looking around and asking, with that glance, the sympathy of all
present, "to berry my zon, my clever zon, my only zon."