ewoon, who works at odd jobs under the
gardener, and was just now busy with a besom, sweeping up the first
fall of autumn leaves. Old Trewoon, I should tell you, is a
Wesleyan, and a Radical of the sardonic sort; and, as a jobbing man,
holds himself free to criticise his employers.

"Good afternoon!" said I. "This is excellent news that I hear about
the Vicar. I was afraid, when I first heard of his illness, that it
might be something serious--at his age--"

"Serious?" Old Trewoon rested his hands on the besom-handle and eyed
me, with a twist of his features. "Missus didn' tell you the natur'
of the complaint, I reckon?"

"As a matter of fact she did not."

"I bet she didn'. Mind you, _I_ don't know, nuther." He up-ended his
besom and plucked a leaf or two from between the twigs before adding,
"And what, makin' so bold, did she tell about the Churchwardens?"

"The Churchwardens?" I echoed.

"Aye, the Churchwardens: Matthey Hancock an' th' old Farmer Truslove.
They was took ill right about the same time. Aw, my dear"--Mr.
Trewoon addresses all mankind impartially as "my dear"--"th' hull
parish knaws about _they_. Though there warn't no concealment, for
that matter."

"What about the Churchwardens?" I asked innocently, and of a sudden
became aware that he was rocking to and fro in short spasms of inward
laughter.

"--It started wi' the Bishop's motor breakin' down; whereby he and
his man spent the better part of two hours in a God-forsaken lane
somewhere t'other side of Hen's Beacon, tryin' to make her go.
He'd timed hisself to reach here punctual for the lunchin' the Missus
always has ready on Confirmation Day: nobody to meet his Lordship but
theirselves and the two Churchwardens; an' you may guess that Hancock
and Truslove had turned up early in their best broadcloth, lookin' to
have the time o' their lives.

"They were pretty keen-set, too, by one o'clock, bein' used to eat
their dinners at noon sharp. One o'clock comes--no Bishop: two
o'clock and still no Bishop. 'There's been a naccydent,' says the
Missus: 'but thank the Lord the vittles is cold!' 'Maybe he've forgot
the day,' says the Vicar; 'but any way, we'll give en another
ha'f-hour's grace an' then set-to,' says he, takin' pity on the
noises old Truslove was makin' inside his weskit. . . . So said, so
done. At two-thirty--service bein' fixed for ha'f-after-three--they
all fell to work.

"You d'know, I dare say, what a craze the Missus h