Ian Hay

“ Mr Entwistle called a halt.
"Been thinking things over," said he, breathing stertorously. "Known this country-side, above and below, nigh seventy year. The lads, they go buzzing round the pit-head, but the old man"—as a matter of fact he said "t'owd mon," but it will be simpler to paraphrase his utterance—"sits at home and thinks things over. They has to come to him in the end!"
All this was highly irrelevant and proportionately exasperating; but old age has its privileges. ”

“ Well, Mrs Entwistle?"
A middle-aged woman with hungry eyes was at his elbow. She was Amos Entwistle's wife.
"Would you come and speak to old Mr Entwistle, sir?" she said—"my man's father. He is too rheumatic to move about easy, but he seems to have something on his mind about another way of getting at them." ”

“ It was the first thing she heard when she landed in England. She is frantic about him, and is coming down here to-day. She has offered to sleep anywhere, do anything, if only she may come. Jack, isn't it too heavenly? ”