human
Thanks be, the Lady o’ Lathom is safe,
gpt
A rare game-bird, she,
human
Ay. She’s plucked a few fine feathers from Rigby. Rigby? I mind the time when he was skulking in and out—trying to find wastrel men who’d pay him to prove black was white in court. And now he calls himself a Captain.
gpt
Well, he’s as he was made, and of small account at that, said the yeoman.
human
The man I blame is Colonel Shuttleworth. One o’ the gentry, he, and likeable. There’s no good comes, say I, when the gentry forget their duty to their King. They go to kirk each Sabbath, and pray for the King’s health—well, they mean it, or they don’t mean it, and there’s no middle way.
gpt
Friends, he said,
human
I’m a stranger here in Lancashire. Who is Colonel Shuttleworth?
gpt
Oh, just a backslider! The yeoman’s face was cheery by long habit, even when he condemned a man.
human
He’s sent fifteen hundred men to help Rigby garrison the town of Bolton. The likes of him to help the likes of Rigby—it makes us fancy the times are upside down.