it my sight!' so sternly, though politely, that she vanished on the
instant; and down stairs she marvelled with Juggy Byrne, 'what the puck
the captain could want of a Bible! Upon my conscience it sounds well.
It's what he's not right in his head, I'm afeared. A Bible!'--and an
aerial voice seemed to say, 'a pistol,' and another, 'a coffin,'--'An'
I'm sure I wish that quare little Lieutenant Puddock id come up and keep
him company. I dunno' what's come over him.'

And they tumbled about the rattletraps under the cupboard, and rummaged
the drawers in search of the sacred volume. For though Juggy said there
was no such thing, and never had been in her time, Mrs. Irons put her
down with asperity. It was not to be found, however, and the matron
thought she remembered that old Mrs. Legge's cook had borrowed it some
time ago for a charm. So she explained the accident to Captain Devereux,
who said--

'I thank you, Madam; 'tis no matter. I wish you a good-night, Madam;'
and the door closed.

'No Bible!' said Devereux, 'the old witch!'

Mrs. Irons, as you remember, never spared her rhetoric, which was
fierce, shrill, and fluent, when the exercise of that gift was called
for. The parish clerk bore it with a cynical and taciturn patience, not,
perhaps, so common as it should be in his sex; and this night, when she
awoke, and her eyes rested on the form of her husband at her bedside,
with a candle lighted, and buckling on his shoes, with his foot on the
chair, she sat up straight in her bed, wide awake in an instant, for it
was wonderful how the sight of that meek man roused the wife in her
bosom, especially after an absence, and she had not seen him since four
o'clock that evening; so you may suppose his reception was warm, and her
expressions every way worthy of her feelings.

Meek Irons finished buckling that shoe, and then lifted the other to the
edge of the chair, and proceeded to do the like for it, serenely, after
his wont, and seeming to hear nothing. So Mrs. Irons proceeded, as was
her custom when that patient person refused to be roused--she grasped
his collar near his cheek, meaning to shake him into attention.

But instantly, as the operation commenced, the clerk griped her with his
long, horny fingers by the throat, with a snap so sure and energetic
that not a cry, not a gasp even, or a wheeze, could escape through 'the
trachea,' as medical men have it; and her face and forehead purpled up,
and her eyes goggled a