“But they take long enough to get well, don’t they?⁠ ⁠… There was my sister’s son, Tom, jest cut his arm with a scythe, tumbled on it in the ’ayfield, and, bless me! he was three months tied up sir. You’d hardly believe it. It’s regular given me a dread of a scythe, sir.”

“I can quite understand that,” said the visitor.

“He was afraid, one time, that he’d have to have an op’ration⁠—he was that bad, sir.”

The visitor laughed abruptly, a bark of a laugh that he seemed to bite and kill in his mouth. “ Was he?” he said.

“He was, sir. And no laughing matter to them as had the doing for him, as I had⁠—my sister being took up with her little ones so much. There was bandages to do, sir, and bandages to undo. So that if I may make so bold as to say it, sir⁠—”

“Will you get me some matches?” said the visitor, quite abruptly. “My pipe is out.”