on?" queried the blacksmith.

"No, not for a long while, Tom."

"I think there must have been lightning with that rain," went on Tom,
after a pause, "although I heard no thunder. Else how ever did that
marble angel over poor Lady Jane's grave come down with such a smash?"

Godfrey glanced at him, but Tom remained imperturbable and went on:

"They du say it wor a wunnerful smash, what broke off both the wings
and nearly flattered out some as stood by. Rum thing, Master Godfrey,
that the lightning should have picked out the grave of so good a lady
to hit; ondiscriminating thing, lightning is."

"Stop talking humbug, Tom. Were you there?" asked Godfrey.

"Well, not exactly there, Master Godfrey, but I and one or two others
was nigh, having heard voices louder than the common, just looking over
the churchyard wall, to tell truth."

"Oh!" ejaculated Godfrey, and Tom continued in a reflective voice.

"My! they were two beuties, what you gave that old fat devil of a
squire. If he'd been a bull instead of only roaring like one, they'd
have brought him down, to say nothing of parson and the angel."

"I couldn't help it, Tom. I was mad."

"And no wonder, after being crumped on the nut with a tight umbrella.
Why, I'd have done the same myself, baronite or no baronite. Oh!
there's no need to explain; I knows everything about it, and so does
every babe in the village by now, not to mention the old women. Master
Godfrey, you take my advice, the next time you go a-courtin' shut the
door behind you, which I always made a point o' doing when I was young.
Being passing that way, I seed parson peeping in, and knowing you was
there, guessed why. Truth is I came to warn you after he'd gone up to
the Hall, but seein' how you was engaged, thought it a pity to
interrupt, though now I wish I had."

Godfrey groaned; there was nothing to say.

"Well, all the soot's in the cooking-pot now, so to speak," proceeded
Tom blandly, "and we're downright sad about it, we are, for as my
missus was saying, you'd make a pretty pair. But, Lord, Master Godfrey,
don't you take it too much to heart, for she's an upright young lady,
she is, and steadfast. Or if she ain't, there's plenty of others; also
one day follows another, as the saying goes, and the worst of old
varmints don't live for ever. But parson, he beats me, and you his son,
so they tell, though I never could think it myself. If he ain't the
meanest ferret I ever clapped eyes on, may the