'Only to hear what have been seed to-night, Mr. Swithin! The work-folk
have dropped in to tell us!'
In the kitchen were the men who had outstripped him on the road. Their
countenances, instead of wearing the usual knotty irregularities, had a
smoothed-out expression of blank concern. Swithin's entrance was
unobtrusive and quiet, as if he had merely come down from his study
upstairs, and they only noticed him by enlarging their gaze, so as to
include him in the audience.
'We was in a deep talk at the moment,' continued Blore, 'and Natty had
just brought up that story about old Jeremiah Paddock's crossing the park
one night at one o'clock in the morning, and seeing Sir Blount a-shutting
my lady out-o'-doors; and we was saying that it seemed a true return that
he should perish in a foreign land; when we happened to look up, and
there was Sir Blount a-walking along.'
'Did it overtake you, or did you overtake it?' whispered Hannah
sepulchrally.
'I don't say 'twas _it_,' returned Sammy. 'God forbid that I should drag
in a resurrection word about what perhaps was still solid manhood, and
has to die! But he, or it, closed in upon us, as 'twere.'
'Yes, closed in upon us!' said Haymoss.
'And I said "Good-night, strainger,"' added Chapman.
'Yes, "Good-night, strainger,"--that wez yer words, Natty. I support ye
in it.'
'And then he closed in upon us still more.'
'We closed in upon he, rather,' said Chapman.
'Well, well; 'tis the same thing in such matters! And the form was Sir
Blount's. My nostrils told me, for--there, 'a smelled. Yes, I could
smell'n, being to leeward.'
'Lord, lord, what unwholesome scandal's this about the ghost of a
respectable gentleman?' said Mrs. Martin, who had entered from the
sitting-room.
'Now, wait, ma'am. I don't say 'twere a low smell, mind ye. 'Twere a
high smell, a sort of gamey flaviour, calling to mind venison and hare,
just as you'd expect of a great squire,--not like a poor man's 'natomy,
at all; and that was what strengthened my faith that 'twas Sir Blount.'
('The skins that old coat was made of,' ruminated Swithin.)
'Well, well; I've not held out against the figure o' starvation these
five-and-twenty year, on nine shillings a week, to be afeard of a walking
vapour, sweet or savoury,' said Hezzy. 'So here's home-along.'
'Bide a bit longer, and I'm going too,' continued Fry. 'Well, when I
found 'twas Sir Blount my spet dried up within my mouth; for neither
hedge nor bush were there for refuge against any foul spring 'a might
have made at us.'
''Twas very curious; but we had likewise a-mentioned his name just afore,
in talking of the confirmation that's shortly coming on,' said Hezzy.
'Is there soon to be a confirmation?'
'Yes. In this parish--the first time in Welland church for twenty years.
As I say, I had told 'em that he was confirmed the same year that I went
up to have it done, as I have very good cause to mind. When we went to
be examined, the pa'son said to me, "Rehearse the articles of thy
belief." Mr. Blount (as he was then) was nighest me, and he whispered,
"Women and wine." "Women and wine," says I to the pa'son: and for that I
was sent back till next confirmation, Sir Blount never owning that he was
the rascal.'
'Confirmation was a sight different at that time,' mused Biles. 'The
Bishops didn't lay it on so strong then as they do now. Now-a-days, yer
Bishop gies both hands to every Jack-rag and Tom-straw that drops the
knee afore him; but 'twas six chaps to one blessing when we was boys. The
Bishop o' that time would stretch out his palms and run his fingers over
our row of crowns as off-hand as a bank gentleman telling money. The
great lords of the Church in them days wasn't particular to a soul or two
more or less; and, for my part, I think living was easier for 't.'
'The new Bishop, I hear, is a bachelor-man; or a widow gentleman is it?'
asked Mrs. Martin.
'Bachelor, I believe, ma'am. Mr. San Cleeve, making so bold, you've
never faced him yet, I think?'
Mrs. Martin shook her head.
'No; it was a piece of neglect. I hardly know how it happened,' she
said.
'I am going to, this time,' said Swithin, and turned the chat to other
matters.