better than a
brimstone match in everybody's nose--if it isna two-three old folks as
you think o' saving your soul by giving 'em a bit o' flannel and a drop
o' porridge. An' you may be right i' thinking it'll take but little to
save your soul, for it'll be the smallest savin' y' iver made, wi' all
your scrapin'."

There are occasions on which two servant-girls and a waggoner may be a
formidable audience, and as the squire rode away on his black pony, even
the gift of short-sightedness did not prevent him from being aware
that Molly and Nancy and Tim were grinning not far from him. Perhaps he
suspected that sour old John was grinning behind him--which was also
the fact. Meanwhile the bull-dog, the black-and-tan terrier, Alick's
sheep-dog, and the gander hissing at a safe distance from the pony's
heels carried out the idea of Mrs. Poyser's solo in an impressive
quartet.

Mrs. Poyser, however, had no sooner seen the pony move off than she
turned round, gave the two hilarious damsels a look which drove them
into the back kitchen, and unspearing her knitting, began to knit again
with her usual rapidity as she re-entered the house.

"Thee'st done it now," said Mr. Poyser, a little alarmed and uneasy, but
not without some triumphant amusement at his wife's outbreak.

"Yes, I know I've done it," said Mrs. Poyser; "but I've had my say out,
and I shall be th' easier for't all my life. There's no pleasure i'
living if you're to be corked up for ever, and only dribble your mind
out by the sly, like a leaky barrel. I shan't repent saying what I
think, if I live to be as old as th' old squire; and there's little
likelihood--for it seems as if them as aren't wanted here are th' only
folks as aren't wanted i' th' other world."

"But thee wutna like moving from th' old place, this Michaelmas
twelvemonth," said Mr. Poyser, "and going into a strange parish, where
thee know'st nobody. It'll be hard upon us both, and upo' Father too."

"Eh, it's no use worreting; there's plenty o' things may happen between
this and Michaelmas twelvemonth. The captain may be master afore them,
for what we know," said Mrs. Poyser, inclined to take an unusually
hopeful view of an embarrassment which had been brought about by her own
merit and not by other people's fault.

"I'M none for worreting," said Mr. Poyser, rising from his
three-cornered chair and walking slowly towards the door; "but I should
be loath to leave th' old place, and the parish wher