All had been peace and amity so far, but the discussion that followed on the choice of the hymns threatened to be acrimonious.
“There be seasons,” said the Chairman reflectively, “when marriage bain’t that satisfaction as it ought to be. ’Twas only just afore I came along that I said to my wife, ‘Mary Ann,’ says I, ‘I be that downhearted an’ low-sperrit’d in my mind, for all the world as if I’d met a buryin’. An’ I see’d a magpie by hisself to-day, an’ I took off my hat to ’n, I did.’
“‘Aye, Joseph,’ said she, when what I wanted was cheerin’ an’ cossettin’ ’long of my downheartedness, ‘Aye, Joseph, we be all on us bound to go, and p’raps ’tis yerself as’ll be the next. ’Tis breakin’ up fast ye be, an’ no mistake, an’ ye looks terrible rough an’ aged, ye does. I doubt as how ye’ll be much longer wi’ us.’ An’, to make sure as how I doesn’t forget it, nowt’ll satisfy her to-morrow but ‘There’s no repentance in the grave,’ or one o’ they dreary grave-diggin’ tunes as I can’t stomach no how. She says as how the childern of the parish be gettin’ that oudacious that nowt won’t turn ’em from their wickedness but one of they scarin’ terrifyin’ hymns.”
“An’ right she be, to my way o’ thinkin’,” said Ebenezer Higgins. “’Tis nowt we hear now a long but o’ the marcy of the Lord—not a word of His judgments, an’ o’ the fire and brimston’ what’s in store for the wicked. Where be the sense, I axes, o’ strainin’ an’ strivin’ after the narrer gate an’ takin’ no part in the sins an’ wickedness o’ this wurld, if ’tis all one at the end, whether ye’ve been on the Lord’s side or on Satan’s?”
“No, Mr. Higgins; I can’t go wi’ ye so far,” said Andrew Strong, the advanced freethinker of the parish. “I don’t hold nowise wi’ scarin’ souls into the path o’ peace. An’ ’tis queer to my mind, that the ’oomen of all people, wi’ their tender hearts as wouldn’t hurt a worm, should be so set on punishin’ wi’ out no end to it. An’ there be wiser men nor we, an’ our own passon too, as doesn’t find such doctrine written in the Book, save an’ except you twists an’ turns God’s word to suit yer own imaginin’s. Bain’t reasonable, it seems to I, not to gi ’us another chance, an’ may be more nor one, same as you’d gi’ yer own childern if so be they crossed an’ shamed ye. An’ we be told, bain’t we? as how there’s preachin’ to the sperrits in the wurld below? Now where be the good o’ preachin’, I axes, if so be that no good’s to come to ’m along o’ it? Why, even in this wurld taint no good beatin’ an’ bastin’ yer childern wi’ out ye throws in a word o’ hope to sweeten it.”
“I think as how ye be right,” said Samuel Smiley, who was a trimmer by nature, and felt sure of his way now that he had a majority to follow. “An’ I gives my vote for ‘O ’twas a joyful sound to hear,’ an’ some o’ they other lively tunes what leaves ye wi’ an appetite for your vittles and doesn’t curdle the very food in yer stomach wi’ terror. An’ ye can tell yer wife, Mr. Weyman, as how we don’t admit no ’oomen on this here Council, no more nor ’postle Paul allowed ’m to be preachers an’ busybodies in the Church. Shame on me to say it, but ’tis my hope as how there’ll be a corner or two in Heaven where th’ ’oomen will ha’ silent tongues.”
It was at this point, when feeling began to run high, that the situation was saved by a remark from the Chairman.
“Heaven help us!” he said, “an’ who be that, I wonder, starin’ in at us through the winder, just as if ’twere a raree show or a menagerie? I’m blessed if it bain’t old Bob (you knows him well, Mr. Smiley) what has a pension o’ five shillings from the Government—thirteen pound a year it be—an’ how he lives on ’t no man knows. For ’tis too aged he be for work, an’ spends his time now-a-long in pickin’ up odds an’ ends what comes ashore wi’ the tide. ’Tis miles he’ll walk for a few bits of timber or a coil of old rope as bain’t worth sixpence when he’s got ’em. An’ ’tis bits of firewood he’s got on his back now by the look on’t—from the wreck, I allow, what come ashore last week.”
“No, you are wrong there, Mr. Weyman. ’Tain’t wood from the wreck he’s got wi’ ’n now. That be all fine clean planks, new as new can be, for ’twas straight from Norway she came, wi’ as fine a lot of timber in her as ever I see’d in my life. An’ what he’s got on his back be old bits of blackened wood what’s been floatin’ by the look on ’t for weeks in the water. Though why he should ha’ been at the pains to gather ’m is more nor I can say, wi’ all that fine new stuff afore his feet, what’d keep all the parishes along the coast in firewood for years to come. But wi’ your permission, Mr. Chairman, we’ll call ’n in an’ axe him. ’Tis a quiet God-fearin’ old chap he be, wi’ a friendly word for everyone. An’ ’twere sorry I were when he left us an’ went to Bayview.”
It was Samuel Smiley who left the room in quest of him. “No, he won’t come in, Mr. Weyman. An’ what’s more, I can’t get speech wi ’n. He’s gone down along the road towards th’ old church an’ village. But he turned now an’ agin as if he wanted a word wi’ us. An’ he looks pale an’ frighted like—or so it seem’d to I in the dim light—same as if he’d had a scare. May be he were scared to see us all seated so serious, discussin’ questions o’ the Church and Parish. For he’s a quiet man what never intrudes hisself, ’cept it be to beg a plug of ’bacca now an’ agin when he meets one on the shore. Seems as how chewin’ be his sole satisfaction. Though why he can’t smoke his ’bacca sensible in a pipe like the rest on us has allus been a puzzle to I. May be he got the notion in the wars agin old Boney, where he gained his pension.”