Page:Eliot - Adam Bede, vol. II, 1859.djvu/336

324 ten i' the forenoon, when I hev my pint as reg'lar as the clock—and I says to Knowles, as druv up with his waggon, 'You'll get a bit o' barley to-day, Knowles,' I says, 'if you look about you; 'and then I went round by the rick-yard, and towart the Treddles'on road; and just as I come up by the big ash- tree, I see the man i' top-boots coming along on a bald-faced boss—I wish I may never stir if I didn't. And I stood still till he come up, and I says, 'Good morning, sir,' I says, for I wanted to hear the turn of his tongue, as I might know whether he was a this-country-man; so I says, 'Good morning, sir: it'll 'old hup for the barley this morning, I think. There'll be a bit got hin, if we've good-luck.' And he says, 'Eh, ye may be raight, there's noo tallin',' he says; and I know'd by that"—here Mr Casson gave a wink—"as he didn't come from a hundred mile off. I daresay he'd think me a hodd talker, as you Loamshire folks allays does hany wonn as talks the right language."

"The right language!" said Bartle Massey, contemptuously. "You're about as near the right language as a pig's squeaking is like a tune played on a key-bugle."