fluttered like a flock of geese, and
parson made answer:

"Then you will meet me in the vestry after Divine Service, Farmer Blake,"
he answered, and so went on with his work.

After that I sat down, and my wife whispered; "Now you've done it, you
silly gawk!"

But I was too put about to heed her. In fact I couldn't stand no more
religion for the moment, and I rose up and went out, and smoked my pipe
behind the family vault of the Lords of the Manor, till the people had all
got away after service. And then I came forth and went into the vestry.
But I wasn't the first, for who should be waiting for me but my sister,
Mary, and Bob Battle himself. Bob was looking out of the window at the
graves, thoughtful like, and parson was getting out of his robes; but Mary
didn't wait for them. She let on to me like a cat-a-mountain, and I never
had such a dressing down from mortal man or woman in all my life as I had
from her that Sunday morning.

"You meddlesome, know-naught, gert fool!" she said. "How do you dare to
lift your beastly voice in the House of God, and defy your Maker, and
disgrace your family and come between me and the man I be going to marry?
You're an insult to the parish and to the nation," she screamed out, "and
'tis enough to make father and mother turn in their graves."

"I didn't know you was to church," I answered her, "and of course if
you're pleased--"

"Pleased!" she cried. "Very like I am pleased! 'Tis a pleasing sort of
thing for a woman to wait for marriage till she's in sight of seventy and
then hear her banns defied by her own brother! Of course I'm
pleased--quite delighted, I'm sure! Who wouldn't be?"

Well, we was three men to one woman, and little by little we calmed her
down with a glass of cold water and words of wisdom from his Reverence.
Then I apologised to all of them--to Mary first for mistaking her meaning,
and to Bob next for being too busy, and to his holiness most of all for
brawling under the Sacred Roof. But he was an understanding man and
thought nothing of it; and as to Battle, he had meant to come up that very
afternoon, along with his betrothed wife, to see us. And it had been
Mary's maidenly idea to let us hear tell about it in church first--to
break the news and spare her blushes.

Well, I went home with my tail a good bit between my legs, in a manner of
speaking; and my sister so far forgave me as to come to tea that day
fortnight, though not sooner. And she was cold and