wi' no
man.'

"'No,' said the farrier, with bitter sarcasm, looking at the company
generally; 'and p'rhaps you didn't say the cow was a red Durham; and
p'rhaps you didn't say she'd got a star on her brow,--stick to that, now
you are at it.'"

Matters having come to this point, the landlord interferes _ex officio_
to preserve order. The Lammeter family having come up, he discreetly
invites Mr. Macey, the parish clerk and tailor, to favor the company
with his recollections on the subject. Mr. Macey, however, "smiled
pityingly in answer to the landlord's appeal, and said: 'Ay, ay; I know,
I know: but I let other folks talk. I've laid by now, and gev up to the
young uns. Ask them as have been to school at Tarley: they've learn't
pernouncing; that's came up since my day.'"

Mr. Macey is nevertheless persuaded to dribble out his narrative;
proceeding by instalments, and questioned from point to point, in a kind
of Socratic manner, by the landlord. He at last arrives at Mr.
Lammeter's marriage, and how the clergyman, when he came to put the
questions, inadvertently transposed the position of the two essential
names, and asked, "Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded wife?" etc.

"'But the partic'larest thing of all,' pursues Mr. Macey, 'is, as nobody
took any notice on it but me, and they answered straight off "Yes," like
as if it had been me saying "Amen" i' the right place, without listening
to what went before.'

"'But _you_ knew what was going on well enough, didn't you, Mr. Macey?
You were live enough, eh?' said the butcher.

"'Yes, bless you!' said Mr. Macey, pausing, and smiling in pity at the
impatience of his hearer's imagination,--'why, I was all of a tremble;
it was as if I'd been a coat pulled by two tails, like; for I couldn't
stop the parson, I couldn't take upon me to do that; and yet I said to
myself, I says, "Suppose they shouldn't be fast married," 'cause the
words are contrairy, and my head went working like a mill, for I was
always uncommon for turning things over and seeing all round 'em; and I
says to myself, "Is 't the meaning or the words as makes folks fast i'
wedlock?" For the parson meant right, and the bride and bridegroom meant
right. But then, when I came to think on it, meaning goes but a little
way i' most things, for you may mean to stick things together and your
glue may be bad, and then where are you?'"

Mr. Macey's doubts, however, are set at rest by the parson after the
service,