sary to be told you, at present, Trim
was for allowing no Time in this Matter;--but, on the contrary, doubled
his Diligence and Importunity at the Vicarage-House;--plagued the whole
Family to Death;--pressed his Suit Morning, Noon, and Night; and, to
shorten my Story, teazed the poor Gentleman, who was but in an ill State
of Health, almost out of his Life about it.

You will not wonder, when I tell you, that all this Hurry and
Precipitation, on the Side of Master Trim, produced its natural Effect
on the Side of the Parson, and that was, a Suspicion that all was not
right at the Bottom.

He was one Evening sitting alone in his Study, weighing and turning this
Doubt every Way in his Mind; and, after an Hour and a half's serious
Deliberation upon the Affair, and running over Trim's Behaviour
throughout,--he was just saying to himself, It must be so;--when a
sudden Rap at the Door put an End to his Soliloquy,--and, in a few
Minutes, to his Doubts too; for a Labourer in the Town, who deem'd
himself past his fifty-second Year, had been returned by the Constable
in the Militia-List,--and he had come, with a Groat in his Hand, to
search the Parish Register for his Age.--The Parson bid the poor Fellow
put the Groat into his Pocket, and go into the Kitchen:--Then shutting
the Study Door, and taking down the Parish Register,--Who knows, says
he, but I may find something here about this self-same Watch-Coat?--He
had scarce unclasped the Book, in saying this, when he popp'd upon the
very Thing he wanted, fairly wrote on the first Page, pasted to the
Inside of one of the Covers, whereon was a Memorandum about the very
Thing in Question, in these express Words:

MEMORANDUM.

The great Watch-Coat was purchased and given above two hundred years
ago, by the Lord of the Manor, to this Parish-Church, to the sole use
and Behoof of the poor sextons thereof, and their Sucessors, for ever,
to be Worn by them respectively in wintery cold Nights, in ringing
Complines, Passing-Bells, &c. which the said Lord of the manor had done,
in Piety, to keep the poor Wretches warm, and for the Good of his own
Soul, for Which they were directed to pray, &c. &c. &c. &c. Just Heaven!
said the Parson to himself, looking upwards, What an Escape have I had!
Give this for an Under-Petticoat to Trim's Wife! I would not have
consented to such a Desecration to be Primate of all England; nay, I
would not have disturb'd a single Button of it for half my Tythes!