`True, drink is a pleasant delight,' said Jan, as one who repeated a truism so familiar to his brain that he hardly noticed its passage over his tongue; and, lifting the cup, Coggan tilted his head gradually backwards, with closed eyes, that his expectant soul might not be diverted for one instant from its bliss by irrelevant surroundings.

`Well, I must be on again,' said Poorgrass. `Not but that I should like another nip with ye; but the parish might lose confidence in me if I was seed here.'

`Where be ye trading o't to to-day, then, Joseph?'

`Back to Weatherbury. I've got poor little Fanny Robin in my waggon outside, and I must be at the churchyard gates at a quarter to five with her.'

`Ay - I've heard of it. And so she's nailed up in parish boards after all, and nobody to pay the bell shilling and the grave half-crown.'

`The parish pays the grave half-crown, but not the bell shilling, because the bell's a luxery: but 'a can hardly do without the grave, poor body. However, I expect our mistress will pay all.'

`A pretty maid as ever I see! But what's yer hurry, Joseph? The poor woman's dead, and you can't bring her to life, and you may as well sit down comfortable, and finish another with us.'

`I don't mind taking just the least thimbleful ye can dream of more with ye, sonnies. But only a few minutes, because 'tis as 'tis.'

`Of course, you'll have another drop. A man's twice the man afterwards. You feel so warm and glorious, and you whop and slap at your work without any trouble, and everything goes on like sticks a-breaking. Too much liquor is bad, and leads us to that horned man in the smoky house; but after all many people haven't the gift of enjoying a wet, and since we be highly favoured with a power that way, we should make the most o't.'

`True,' said Mark Clark. "Tis a talent the lord has mercifully bestowed upon us, and we ought not to neglect it. But, what with the parsons and clerks and school-people and serious tea-parties, the merry old ways of good life have gone to the dogs - upon my carcase, they have!'

`Well, really, I must be onward again now,' said Joseph.

`Now, now, Joseph; nonsense! The poor woman is dead, isn't she, and what's your hurry?'

`Well, I hope Providence won't be in a way with me for my doings,' said Joseph, again sitting down. `I've been troubled with weak moment' lately, 'tis true. I've been drinky once this month already and I did not go to church a-Sunday, and I dropped a curse or two yesterday; so I don't want to go too far for my safety. Your next world is your next world, and not to be squandered offhand.'

`I believe ye to be a chapel-member, Joseph. That I do.'

`Oh, no, no! I don't go so far as that.'

`For my part,' said Coggan, `I'm staunch Church of England.'

`Ay, and faith, so be I,' said Mark Clark.

`I won't say much for myself; I don't wish to,' Coggan continued, with that tendency to talk on principles which is characteristic of the barley-corn. `But I've never changed a single doctrine: I've stuck like a plaster to the old faith I was born in. Yes; there's this to be said for the Church, a man can belong to the Church and bide in his cheerful old inn, and never trouble or worry his mind about doctrines at all. But to be a