I remember once when our little church was gaily decorated for the harvest festival some one had the happy thought of placing among the garlands of flowers and masses of fruit and vegetables—­thank-offerings from various parishioners—­which were heaped on each side of the chancel, a miniature hayrick beautifully made and thatched, and a tiny cornstack to correspond.  The sermon was over, and the service proceeding as usual, when suddenly a burst of sobs distracted the congregation, and Robert Barnes, the bluffest and burliest farmer in the whole property, was observed to be wiping his eyes with a red cotton handkerchief.  In vain did his scandalised wife nudge and reprove him; he sobbed on, and she grew alarmed.  “Wasn’t he well?” she asked.

“Aye, well enough,” groaned Robert; “but it’s so beautiful.  I cannot choose but cry!”

“Is’t th’ music, feyther?” inquired his daughter.

“Nay, nay—­it’s them there little stacks.  Eh, they’re—­they’re gradely.  I never see sich a seet i’ my life.”

If this was not susceptibility, I don’t know where to look for it.

No doubt a certain roughness of speech, an almost brutal frankness, is a noticeable northern characteristic.  It strikes a stranger painfully, but is accepted and even appreciated by those accustomed to it from childhood.

A sick man expects to be told he looks real bad, and preserves an unmoved tranquillity on hearing how small a likelihood there is of his ever looking up again, and what a deal of trouble he gives.  The visitor unused to our ways shrinks from hearing these subjects discussed in the presence of the patient, but he himself listens philosophically, and, it would occasionally appear, with an odd pleasure in his own importance.

“Eh, I sometimes think it ‘ud be a mercy if th’ Lord ‘ud tak’ him,” says the middle-aged daughter of a paralysed labourer, eyeing him dispassionately.  “Doctor says he’ll never be no better, an’ I’m sure he’s a misery to hissel’, as well’s every one else.  Aren’t ye, feyther?”

“Ah,” grunts feyther.  “I’d be fain to go.  I would—­I’d be fain.”

“What wi’s restin’ so bad o’ neets, an’ th’ gettin’ up an’ down to him, an’ feedin’ him, an’ shiftin’ him—­he’s that ’eavy I cannot stir him mysel’—­I ‘ave to wait till th’ lads comes back fro’ work—­eh, it’s weary work!  I’m very nigh killed wi’t.”

“Well, but if he gets better, you know,” suggests the visitor, “you’ll be glad to have nursed him so well.”

“Eh, he’ll noan get better now; doctor says he hasn’t a chance.”

The patient, who has been listening with close attention, and not a little satisfaction, to his daughter’s report, now rolls his eyes towards his interlocutor.

“Nay, nay, I’ll noan get better,” he observes somewhat resentfully.  “Tisn’t to be expected.  I’m gettin’ on for seventy-eight, an’ this here’s my second stroke.”

“Ah, his constitution’s worn out,” adds the woman; “that was what doctor said. ‘’Tisn’t to be expected as he could recover,’ says he; ‘his constitution’s worn out.’”