yesterday."

"His sermon was well enough, a very good guessable sermon, only he
couldn't put it into words and speak it. That's all was the matter wi'
the sermon. He hadn't been able to get it past his pen."

"Well--ay, the sermon might have been good; for, 'tis true, the sermon of
Old Eccl'iastes himself lay in Eccl'iastes's ink-bottle afore he got it
out."

Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing the last stitch tight, could
afford time to look up and throw in a word at this point.

"He's no spouter--that must be said, 'a b'lieve."

"'Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with the man, as far as spout do go,"
said Spinks.

"Well, we'll say nothing about that," the tranter answered; "for I don't
believe 'twill make a penneth o' difference to we poor martels here or
hereafter whether his sermons be good or bad, my sonnies."

Mr. Penny made another hole with his awl, pushed in the thread, and
looked up and spoke again at the extension of arms.

"'Tis his goings-on, souls, that's what it is." He clenched his features
for an Herculean addition to the ordinary pull, and continued, "The first
thing he done when he came here was to be hot and strong about church
business."

"True," said Spinks; "that was the very first thing he done."

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