“Bull-baiting’s bad!”
And times the baby would give a guggle, and times he’d stay quiet,
considering, like. There was only one disagreeing voice, and that was
old Granfer Callard’s, which was very high and trembling. He’d call
out—
“No! No! It inna bad. It be a right good merry old sport!”
But nobody listened to him, for he was getting very simple. He came to
the door when I knocked, and called out to his daughter-law—
“It be that there long thing young ’oman, Maria. The witch woman.”
“Well, bring her in, feyther-law.”
“Come thy ways,” he says. “Her’ll be down when the baby gives over
hollering. I do wish I’d got such lungs as hisn. I be very middling.
Very middling I be. Can you do cures?”