J. S. Fletcher

“ He could never abear to keep silence, even at a burying, and so he presently begins to chatter like a magpie in a thorn-tree.
"A dull day, master," says he, "and yet a lively one, what with all these fightings and strivings and gathering of great armies of battle."
But the man by the fireside never spoke.
"By your great sword," says John, "and your harness," he says, "and your pistols," he says, "I take you to be a man of war. I am a man of war myself," he says, laughing at his own wit, "but 'tis in a peaceful fashion, so far as I am concerned. ”

“ It was near six o'clock of a somewhat dullish evening—I cannot now remember whether it was in the last week of November or the first week in December—and there had been a bit o' peace for Prissy and for me during the last half-hour. In our kitchen sat Dick Pritchett, the smith, Peter Whipp, the wright, and old John, the mouldy-warp [1] catcher, who had come there to hear the news and drink their mugs of ale. ”

“ And, since there had been rumour all day of this and that, they must needs talk of naught but the wars, and the King, and Cromwell, and such-like matters. But I, being wearied out, sat in the corner of the settle, and listened to them without taking a share in their discourse. "God send," said I to myself, "that no more travellers trouble us to-night."
"They tell me," says Peter Whipp, for the twentieth time, "that the King will have his head cut off. It seems a 'nation strange thing to do wi' a crowned king; but we abide in strange times." ”