"Losh, Uncle, I'd no idea you was there," said the tin-smith, wheeling round. "And how's your lad looking?"
"Tolerable—tolerable. 'A's got a black suit, my sonnies, and a white tie, and a soft hat that looks large on the head, but can be folded and stowed in your tail pocket." Complacency shone over the speaker's shrivelled cheeks, and beamed from his horn-spectacles. "You can tell 'en at a glance for a Circuit-man and no common Rounder."
"'A's fully knowledgeable by all accounts; learnt out, they tell me."
"You shall hear 'en for yourselves at meeting to-morrow. He conducts both services. Now don't tempt me any more, that's good souls: for when he'd no sooner set foot in th' house and kissed his mother than he had us all down on our knees giving hearty thanks in the most beautiful language, I said to myself, 'many's the time I've had two minds about the money spent in making ye a better man than your father;' but fare thee well, doubt! I don't begrudge it, an' there's an end."
A small girl came running down the street to the bridge-end.
"Uncle Penberthy," she panted, "your tall son—Mr. William—said I was to run down and fetch 'ee home at once."
"Nothin' wrong with 'en, I hope?"
"I think he's going to hold a prayer."
The little man looked at the blade of his knife for a moment, half regretfully: then briskly clasped it, slipped it into his pocket, and hobbled away after the messenger.
The whitewashed front of the Meeting House was bathed, next evening, with soft sunset yellow when Mr. Penberthy the elder stole down the stairs between the exhortations, as his custom was, and stood bareheaded in the doorway respiring the cool air. As a deacon he temperately used the privileges of his office, and one of these was a seat next the door. The Meeting House was really no more than a room—a long upper chamber over a store; and its stairway descended into the street so sharply that it was possible, even for a short-armed man, to sit on the lowest step and shake hands with a friend in the street.