’See ’im ‘ome, you mean?’ said Ortheris.

‘Ay.  It’s a way we have i’ Yorkshire o’ seein’ friends off.  You was a friend as I didn’t want to come back, and he didn’t want me to come back neither, and so we’d walk together towards Pately, and then he’d set me back again, and there we’d be wal two o’clock i’ the mornin’ settin’ each other to an’ fro like a blasted pair o’ pendulums twixt hill and valley, long after th’ light had gone out i’ ’Liza’s window, as both on us had been looking at, pretending to watch the moon.’

‘Ah!’ broke in Mulvaney, ‘ye’d no chanst against the maraudin’ psalm-singer.  They’ll take the airs an’ the graces instid av the man nine times out av ten, an’ they only find the blunder later—­the wimmen.’

‘That’s just where yo’re wrong,’ said Learoyd, reddening under the freckled tan of his cheeks.  ‘I was th’ first wi’ ‘Liza, an’ yo’d think that were enough.  But th’ parson were a steady-gaited sort o’ chap, and Jesse were strong o’ his side, and all th’ women i’ the congregation dinned it to ’Liza ‘at she were fair fond to take up wi’ a wastrel ne’er-do-weel like me, as was scarcelins respectable an’ a fighting dog at his heels.  It was all very well for her to be doing me good and saving my soul, but she must mind as she didn’t do herself harm.  They talk o’ rich folk bein’ stuck up an’ genteel, but for cast-iron pride o’ respectability there’s naught like poor chapel folk.  It’s as cold as th’ wind o’ Greenhow Hill—­ay, and colder, for ’twill never change.  And now I come to think on it, one at strangest things I know is ’at they couldn’t abide th’ thought o’ soldiering.  There’s a vast o’ fightin’ i’ th’ Bible, and there’s a deal of Methodists i’ th’ army; but to hear chapel folk talk yo’d think that soldierin’ were next door, an’ t’other side, to hangin’.  I’ their meetin’s all their talk is o’ fightin’.  When Sammy Strother were stuck for summat to say in his prayers, he’d sing out, “Th’ sword o’ th’ Lord and o’ Gideon.”  They were allus at it about puttin’ on th’ whole armour o’ righteousness, an’ fightin’ the good fight o’ faith.  And then, atop o’ ‘t all, they held a prayer-meetin’ ower a young chap as wanted to ’list, and nearly deafened him, till he picked up his hat and fair ran away.  And they’d tell tales in th’ Sunday-school o’ bad lads as had been thumped and brayed for bird-nesting o’ Sundays and playin’ truant o’ week-days, and how they took to wrestlin’, dog-fightin’, rabbit-runnin’, and drinkin’, till at last, as if ‘twere a hepitaph on a gravestone, they damned him across th’ moors wi’, “an’ then he went and ‘listed for a soldier,” an’ they’d all fetch a deep breath, and throw up their eyes like a hen drinkin’.’

‘Fwhy is ut?’ said Mulvaney, bringing down his hand on his thigh with a crack.’  In the name av God, fwhy is ut?  I’ve seen ut, tu.  They cheat an’ they swindle an’ they lie an’ they slander, an’ fifty things fifty times worse; but the last an’ the worst by their reckonin’ is to serve the Widdy honest.  It’s like the talk av childher—­seein’ things all round.’