,'
used to do the same of a Sunday as o' weekdays, and took no heed to
right or wrong, as if there was nayther God nor devil. An' what's he
come to? Why, I saw him myself last market-day a-carrying a basket wi'
oranges in't."

"Ah, to be sure," said Mrs. Poyser, emphatically, "you make but a poor
trap to catch luck if you go and bait it wi' wickedness. The money as is
got so's like to burn holes i' your pocket. I'd niver wish us to leave
our lads a sixpence but what was got i' the rightful way. And as for
the weather, there's One above makes it, and we must put up wi't: it's
nothing of a plague to what the wenches are."

Notwithstanding the interruption in their walk, the excellent habit
which Mrs. Poyser's clock had of taking time by the forelock had secured
their arrival at the village while it was still a quarter to two,
though almost every one who meant to go to church was already within the
churchyard gates. Those who stayed at home were chiefly mothers, like
Timothy's Bess, who stood at her own door nursing her baby and feeling
as women feel in that position--that nothing else can be expected of
them.

It was not entirely to see Thias Bede's funeral that the people were
standing about the churchyard so long before service began; that was
their common practice. The women, indeed, usually entered the church at
once, and the farmers' wives talked in an undertone to each other, over
the tall pews, about their illnesses and the total failure of doctor's
stuff, recommending dandelion-tea, and other home-made specifics, as
far preferable--about the servants, and their growing exorbitance as to
wages, whereas the quality of their services declined from year to year,
and there was no girl nowadays to be trusted any further than you could
see her--about the bad price Mr. Dingall, the Treddleston grocer, was
giving for butter, and the reasonable doubts that might be held as to
his solvency, notwithstanding that Mrs. Dingall was a sensible woman,
and they were all sorry for HER, for she had very good kin. Meantime the
men lingered outside, and hardly any of them except the singers, who had
a humming and fragmentary rehearsal to go through, entered the church
until Mr. Irwine was in the desk. They saw no reason for that premature
entrance--what could they do in church if they were there before service
began?--and they did not conceive that any power in the universe
could take it ill of them if they stayed out and talked a l