“But you knew what was going on well enough, didn’t you, Mr. Macey? You were live enough, eh?” said the butcher.

“Lor’ bless you!” said Mr. Macey, pausing and smiling in pity at the impotence of his hearer’s imagination—“why, I was all of a tremble: it was as if I’d been a coat pulled by the two tails, like; for I couldn’t stop the parson—I couldn’t take upon me to do that; and yet I said to myself, I says, ‘Suppose they shouldn’t be fast married, ’cause the words are contrairy?’ and my head went working like a mill, for I was allays uncommon for turning things over and seeing all round ’em; and I says to myself, ‘Is’t the meanin’ or the words as makes folks fast i’ wedlock?’ For the parson meant right, and the bride and bridegroom meant right. But then, when I come to think on it, meanin’ goes but a little way i’ most things; for you may mean to stick things together, and your glue may be bad, and then where are you? And so I says to mysen, ‘It isn’t the meanin’, it’s the glue.’ And I was worreted as if I’d got three bells to pull at once, when we went into the vestry, and they begun to sign their names. But where’s the use o’ talking? you can’t think what goes on in a ’cute man’s inside.”

“But you held in for all that, didn’t you, Mr. Macey?” said the landlord.

“Ay, I held in tight till I was by mysen wi’ Mr. Drumlow, and then I out wi’ everything, but respectful, as I allays did. And he made light on it, and he says, ‘Pooh, pooh, Macey; make yourself easy,’ he says: ‘it’s neither the meaning nor the words; it’s the regester does it—that’s the glue.’ So you see he settled it easy; for parsons and doctors know everything by heart, like, so as they aren’t worreted wi’ thinking what’s the rights and wrongs o’ things, as I’n been many and many’s the time. And sure enough the wedding turned out all right, on’y poor Mrs. Lammeter—that’s Miss Osgood as was—died afore the lasses was growed up; but for prosperity and everything respectable, there’s no family more looked on.”

Every one of Mr. Macey’s audience had heard this story many times, but it was listened to as if it had been a favourite tune, and at certain points the puffing of the pipes was momentarily suspended, that the listeners might give their whole minds to the expected words. But there was more to come; and Mr. Snell, the landlord, duly put the leading question.

“Why, old Mr. Lammeter had a pretty fortin, didn’t they say, when he come into these parts?”

“Well, yes,” said Mr. Macey; “but I dare say it’s as much as this Mr. Lammeter’s done to keep it whole. For there was allays a talk as nobody could get rich on the Warrens; though he holds it cheap, for it’s what they call Charity Land.”

“Ay, and there’s few folks know so well as you how it come to be Charity Land, eh, Mr. Macey?” said the butcher.

“How should they?” said the old clerk with some contempt. “Why, my grandfather made the grooms’ livery for that Mr. Cliff as came and built the big stables at the Warrens. Why, they’re stables four times as big as Squire Cass’s, for he thought o’ nothing but hosses and hunting, Cliff didn’t—a Lunnon tailor, some folks said, as had gone mad wi’ cheating. For he couldn’t ride; Lor’ bless you, they said he’d got no more grip o’ the hoss than if his legs had been cross-sticks; my grandfather heared old Squire Cass say so many and many a time. But ride he would as if Old Harry had been a-driving him; and he’d a son, a lad o’ sixteen, and nothing would his father have him do but he must ride and ride—though the lad was frighted, they said. And it was a common saying as the father wanted to ride the tailor out o’ the lad, and make a gentleman on him—not but what I’m a tailor myself, but in respect as God made me such, I’m proud on it, for ‘Macey, tailor,’ ’s been wrote up over our door since afore the Queen’s heads went out on the shillings. But Cliff, he was ashamed o’ being called a tailor, and he was sore vexed as his riding was laughed at, and nobody o’ the gentlefolks hereabout could abide him. Howsomever, the poor lad got sickly and died; and the father didn’t live long after him, for he got queerer nor ever, and they said he used to go out i’ the dead o’ the night, wi’ a lantern in his hand, to the stables, and set a lot o’ lights burning, for he got as he couldn’t sleep; and there he’d stand, cracking his whip and looking at his hosses; and they said it was a mercy as the stables didn’t get burnt down wi’ the poor