“I think of ’ee as one what speaks fair enough,” grumbled Gerda’s mother, “but ’tis deeds I waits for. As I said to Torp this very mornin’⁠ ⁠… ‘Thy fair-spoken young gent,’ I said, ‘be only another Redfern; and all the country do know how daft he were!’ Squire Urquhart must have ’em daft! Daft must they be for he, as I said to Torp. And that’s because it’s only the daft ’uns what’ll serve for his cantrips⁠—the girt bog-wuzzel ’ee is!”

Wolf detected a very sagacious expression in old Dimity’s eye as she dropped his fingers at this.

“This gent bain’t no more a Redfern, Jane Torp, than a pond-pike be a gudgeon. What I’ve a-said to ’ee in neighbour-fashion I’d say now to ’ee on Bible-oath.”