rough his son's being a local preacher and him a freemason.
Do you think Scantlebury could make typhoid fever, if he tried?"

"Well, no; if you put it in that way. A Board School was as high as
ever his parents could afford to send him: and then he went into the
greengrocery, and at one time was said to be going to fail for over
three hundred, when this place was found for him. A fair-spoken
little man, but scientific in no sense o' the word."

There was a pause.

"The silly man collected himself towards the end," said Mrs Polsue.
"There was sense enough in what he said about every man's duty just
now--that it was to fight, not to argue; though, after his manner, he
didn't pitch it half strong enough. . . . I've been thinking that
very thing over, Charity Oliver, ever since the Vicarage meetin', and
it seems to me that if we're to be an Emergency Committee in anything
better than name, our first business should be to stir up the young
men to enlist. The way these tall fellows be hangin' back, and their
country callin' out for them! There's young Seth Minards, for
instance; an able-bodied young man if ever there was one. But I
don't mind telling you I'm taking some steps to stir up their
consciences."

"I did hear," said her friend sweetly, "that you had been stirring up
the women. In fact it reached me, dear, that Mrs Penhaligon had
already chased you to the door with a besom--and she the mildest
woman, which no doubt you reckoned on for a beginning. But if you
mean to tackle the young men as well--though I can't call to mind
that the Vicarage meetin' set it down as any part of your duties--"

"I don't take my orders from any Vicarage meeting," snapped Mrs
Polsue; "not at any time, and least of all in an emergency like
this, when country and conscience call me together to a plain duty.
As for Mrs Penhaligon, you were misinformed, and I advise you to be
more careful how you listen to gossip. The woman was insolent, but
she did _not_ chase me--as you vulgarly put it, no doubt repeating
your informant's words--she did _not_ chase me out of doors with a
besom. On the contrary, she gave me full opportunity to say what I
thought of her."

"Yes; so I understood, dear: and it was after that, and in
consequence (as I was told) that she--"

"If you are proposing, Charity Oliver, to retail this story to
others, you may drag in a besom if you will. But as a fact Mrs
Penhaligon resorted to nothing but bad languag