Mr. Penny, having now been offered the ear of the assembly, accepted it, ceased stitching, swallowed an unimportant quantity of air as if it were a pill, and continued:
“The next thing he do do is to think about altering the church, until he found ‘twould be a matter o’ cost and what not, and then not to think no more about it.”
“True: that was the next thing he done.”
“And the next thing was to tell the young chaps that they were not on no account to put their hats in the christening font during service.”
“True.”
“And then ’twas this, and then ’twas that, and now ’tis —”
Words were not forcible enough to conclude the sentence, and Mr. Penny gave a huge pull to signify the concluding word.
“Now ’tis to turn us out of the quire neck and crop,” said the tranter after an interval of half a minute, not by way of explaining the pause and pull, which had been quite understood, but as a means of keeping the subject well before the meeting.
Mrs. Penny came to the door at this point in the discussion. Like all good wives, however much she was inclined to play the Tory to her husband’s Whiggism, and vice versa, in times of peace, she coalesced with him heartily enough in time of war.
“It must be owned he’s not all there,” she replied in a general way to the fragments of talk she had heard from indoors. “Far below poor Mr. Grinham” (the late vicar).
“Ay, there was this to be said for he, that you were quite sure he’d never come mumbudgeting to see ye, just as you were in the middle of your work, and put you out with his fuss and trouble about ye.”
“Never. But as for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very well-intending party in that respect, he’s unbearable; for as to sifting your cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, why, you can’t do it. I assure you I’ve not been able to empt them for several days, unless I throw ’em up the chimley or out of winder; for as sure as the sun you meet him at the door, coming to ask how you are, and ’tis such a confusing thing to meet a gentleman at the door when ye are in the mess o’ washing.”
“’Tis only for want of knowing better, poor gentleman,” said the tranter. “His meaning’s good enough. Ay, your pa’son comes by fate: ’tis heads or tails, like pitch-halfpenny, and no choosing; so we must take en as he is, my sonnies, and thank God he’s no worse, I suppose.”
“I fancy I’ve seen him look across at Miss Day in a warmer way than Christianity asked for,” said Mrs. Penny musingly; “but I don’t quite like to say it.”
“O no; there’s nothing in that,” said grandfather William.
“If there’s nothing, we shall see nothing,” Mrs. Penny replied, in the tone of a woman who might possibly have private opinions still.
“Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man!” said Bowman. “Why, he never troubled us wi’ a visit from year’s end to year’s end. You might go anywhere, do anything: you’d be sure never to see him.”
“Yes, he was a right sensible pa’son,” said Michael. “He never entered our door but once in his life, and that was to tell my poor wife — ay, poor soul, dead and gone now, as we all shall! — that as she was such a’ old aged person, and lived so far from the church, he didn’t at all expect her to come any more to the service.”
“And ‘a was a very jinerous gentleman about choosing the psalms and hymns o’ Sundays. ‘Confound ye,’ says he, ‘blare and scrape what ye will, but don’t bother me!’”
“And he was a very honourable man in not wanting any of us to come and hear him if we were all on-end for a jaunt or spree, or to bring the babies to be christened if they were inclined to squalling. There’s good in a man’s not putting a parish to unnecessary trouble.”
“And there’s this here man never letting us have a bit o’ peace; but keeping on about being good and upright till ’tis carried to such a pitch as I never see the like afore nor since!”
“No sooner had he got here than he found the font wouldn’t hold water, as it hadn’t for years off and on; and when I told him that Mr. Grinham never minded it, but used to spet upon his vinger and christen ’em just as well, ‘a said, ‘Good Heavens! Send for a workman immediate. What place have I come to!’ Which was no compliment to us, come to that.”
“Still, for my part,” said old William, “though he’s arrayed against us, I like the hearty borussnorus ways of the new pa’son.”
“You, ready to die for the quire,” said Bowman reproachfully, “to stick up for the quire’s enemy, William!”
“Nobody will feel the loss of our church-work so much as I,” said the old man firmly; “that you d’all know. I’ve a-been in the quire man and boy ever since I was a chiel of eleven. But for all that ‘tisn’t in me to call the man a bad man, because I truly and sincerely believe en to be a good young feller.”
Some of the youthful sparkle that used to reside there animated William’s eye as he uttered the words, and a certain nobility of aspect was also imparted to him by the setting sun, which gave him a Titanic shadow at least thirty feet in length, stretching away to the east in outlines of imposing magnitude, his head finally terminating upon the trunk of a grand old oak-tree.
“Mayble’s a hearty feller enough,” the tranter replied, “and will spak to you be you dirty or be you clane. The first time I met en was in a drong, and though ‘a didn’t know me no more than the dead, ‘a passed the time of day. ‘D’ye do?’ he said, says he, nodding his head. ‘A fine day.’ Then the second time I met en was full-buff in town street, when my breeches were tore into a long strent by getting through a copse of thorns and brimbles for a short cut home-along; and not wanting to disgrace the man by spaking in that state, I fixed my eye on the weathercock to let en pass me as a stranger. But no: ‘How d’ye do, Reuben?’ says he, right hearty, and shook my hand. If I’d been dressed in silver spangles from top to toe, the man couldn’t have been civiller.”
At this moment Dick was seen coming up the village-street, and they turned and watched him.
Chapter III
A Turn in the Discussion
“I’m afraid Dick’s a lost man,” said the tranter.
“What? — no!” said Mail, implying by his manner that it was a far commoner thing for his ears to report what was not said than that his judgment should be at fault.
“Ay,” said the tranter, still gazing at Dick’s unconscious advance. “I don’t at all like what I see! There’s too many o’ them looks out of the winder without noticing anything; too much shining of boots; too much peeping round corners; too much looking at the clock; telling about clever things she did till you be sick of it; and then upon a hint to that effect a horrible silence about her. I’ve walked the path once in my life and know the country, neighbours; and Dick’s a lost man!” The tranter turned a quarter round and smiled a smile of miserable satire at the setting new
