er's cow, else you told a lie
when you said it was a red Durham."

"I tell no lies," said the butcher, with the same mild huskiness as
before, "and I contradick none--not if a man was to swear himself
black: he's no meat o' mine, nor none o' my bargains. All I say is,
it's a lovely carkiss. And what I say, I'll stick to; but I'll quarrel
wi' no man."

"No," said the farrier, with bitter sarcasm, looking at the company
generally; "and p'rhaps you aren't pig-headed; and p'rhaps you didn't
say the cow was a red Durham; and p'rhaps you didn't say she'd got a
star on her brow--stick to that, now you're at it."

"Come, come," said the landlord; "let the cow alone. The truth lies
atween you: you're both right and both wrong, as I allays say. And as
for the cow's being Mr. Lammeter's, I say nothing to that; but this I
say, as the Rainbow's the Rainbow. And for the matter o' that, if the
talk is to be o' the Lammeters, _you_ know the most upo' that head, eh,
Mr. Macey? You remember when first Mr. Lammeter's father come into
these parts, and took the Warrens?"

Mr. Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter of which functions
rheumatism had of late obliged him to share with a small-featured young
man who sat opposite him, held his white head on one side, and twirled
his thumbs with an air of complacency, slightly seasoned with
criticism. He smiled pityingly, in answer to the landlord's appeal,
and said--

"Aye, aye; I know, I know; but I let other folks talk. I've laid by
now, and gev up to the young uns. Ask them as have been to school at
Tarley: they've learnt pernouncing; that's come up since my day."

"If you're pointing at me, Mr. Macey," said the deputy clerk, with an
air of anxious propriety, "I'm nowise a man to speak out of my place.
As the psalm says--

"I know what's right, nor only so,
But also practise what I know."

"Well, then, I wish you'd keep hold o' the tune, when it's set for you;
if you're for prac_tis_ing, I wish you'd prac_tise_ that," said a large
jocose-looking man, an excellent wheelwright in his week-day capacity,
but on Sundays leader of the choir. He winked, as he spoke, at two of
the company, who were known officially as the "bassoon" and the
"key-bugle", in the confidence that he was expressing the sense of the
musical profession in Raveloe.

Mr. Tookey, the deputy-clerk, who shared the unpopularity common to
deputies, turned very red, but replied, with careful moderation-