s.

"Ay, he's back."

"Losh, Uncle, I'd no idea you was there," said the tin-smith, wheeling
round. "And how's your lad looking?"

"Tolerable--tolerable. 'A's got a black suit, my sonnies, and a white
tie, and a soft hat that looks large on the head, but can be folded
and stowed in your tail pocket." Complacency shone over the speaker's
shrivelled cheeks, and beamed from his horn-spectacles. "You can tell
'en at a glance for a Circuit-man and no common Rounder."

"'A's fully knowledgeable by all accounts; learnt out, they tell me."

"You shall hear 'en for yourselves at meeting to-morrow. He conducts
both services. Now don't tempt me any more, that's good souls: for
when he'd no sooner set foot in th' house and kissed his mother than
he had us all down on our knees giving hearty thanks in the most
beautiful language, I said to myself, 'many's the time I've had two
minds about the money spent in making ye a better man than your
father;' but fare thee well, doubt! I don't begrudge it, an' there's
an end."

A small girl came running down the street to the bridge-end.

"Uncle Penberthy," she panted, "your tall son--Mr. William--said I
was to run down and fetch 'ee home at once."

"Nothin' wrong with 'en, I hope?"

"I think he's going to hold a prayer."

The little man looked at the blade of his knife for a moment, half
regretfully: then briskly clasped it, slipped it into his pocket, and
hobbled away after the messenger.

The whitewashed front of the Meeting House was bathed, next evening,
with soft sunset yellow when Mr. Penberthy the elder stole down
the stairs between the exhortations, as his custom was, and stood
bareheaded in the doorway respiring the cool air. As a deacon he
temperately used the privileges of his office, and one of these was
a seat next the door. The Meeting House was really no more than a
room--a long upper chamber over a store; and its stairway descended
into the street so sharply that it was possible, even for a
short-armed man, to sit on the lowest step and shake hands with a
friend in the street.

The roadway was deserted for a while. Across the atmosphere there
reigned that hush which people wonder at on Sundays, forgetting that
nature is always still and that nine-tenths of the week's hubbub is
made by man. Down the pale sky came a swallow, with another in chase:
their wings were motionless as they swept past the doorway, but the
air whizzed with the speed of their flight, and i