ide, "we don't have no
magistrates at Wodgate. We've got a constable, and there was a prentice
who coz his master laid it on, only with a seat rod, went over to
Ramborough and got a warrant. He fetched the summons himself and giv
it to the constable, but he never served it. That's why they has a
constable here."

"I am sorry," said Morley, "that I have affairs with such a wretch as
this Hatton."

"You'll find him a wery hearty sort of man," said the filer, "if he
don't hap to be in drink. He's a little robustious then, but take him
all in all for a master, you may go further and fare worse.

"What! this monster!"

"Lord bless you, it's his way, that's all, we be a queer set here; but
he has his pints. Give him a lock to make, and you won't have your box
picked; he's wery lib'ral too in the wittals. Never had horse-flesh the
whole time I was with him; they has nothin' else at Tugsford's; never
had no sick cow except when meat was very dear. He always put his face
agin still-born calves; he used to say he liked his boys to have meat
what was born alive and killed alive. By which token there never was any
sheep what had bust in the head sold in our court. And then sometimes
he would give us a treat of fish, when it had been four or five days in
town and not sold. No, give the devil his due, say I. There never was no
want for anything at meals with the Bishop, except time to eat them in."

"And why do you call him the Bishop?"

"That's his name and authority; for he's the governor here over all
of us. And it has always been so that Wodgate has been governed by a
bishop; because as we have no church, we will have as good. And by this
token that this day sen'night, the day my time was up, he married me to
this here young lady. She is of the Baptist school religion, and wanted
us to be tied by her clergyman, but all the lads that served their time
with me were married by the Bishop, and many a more, and I saw no call
to do no otherwise. So he sprinkled some salt over a gridiron, read 'Our
Father' backwards, and wrote our name in a book: and we were spliced;
but I didn't do it rashly, did I, Suky, by the token that we had kept
company for two years, and there isn't a gal in all Wodgate what handles
a file, like Sue."

"And what is your name, my good fellow?"

"They call me Tummas, but I ayn't got no second name; but now I am
married I mean to take my wife's, for she has been baptised, and so has
got two."

"Yes sir,