They two applied themselves to their tasks: the woman washed the linen and cleaned the doorsteps and the houses of her neighbors, the man put posters on hoardings, trimmed gardens, stood at the doors of Welsh gatherings. By night they mustered, sweeping the floor of the chapel, polishing the wood and brass that were therein, and beating the cushions and hassocks which were in the pews of the most honored of the congregation. Sunday mornings Tim put a white india-rubber collar under the Adam's apple in his throat, and Martha covered her long, thin body in black garments, and drew her few hairs tightly from her forehead.
Though they clad and comported themselves soberly Enoch Harries, who, at this day, was the treasurer and head deacon of the chapel, spoke up against them to Eylwin Jones. This is his complaint: "Careless was Tim in the dispatch department, delivering the parcel always to the wrong customers and for why he was sacked. Good was I to get him the capel. Careless he is now also. By twilight, dark, and thick blackness, light electric burns in Tabernacle. Waste that is. Sound will I my think. Why cannot the work be done in the day I don't know."
"You cannot say less," said Eylwin Jones. "Pay they ought for this, the irreligious couple. As the English proverb—'There's no gratitude in the poor.'"
"Another serious piece of picking have I," continued Harries. "I saw Tim sticking on hoarding. 'What, dear me,' I mumbled between the teeth—I don't speech to myself, man, as usual. The Apostles did, now. They wrote their minds. Benefit for many if I put down my religious thinks for a second New Testament. What say you, Eylwin Jones? Lots of says very clever I can give you—'is he sticking?' A biggish paper was the black pasting about Walham Green Music Hall. What do you mean for that? And the posters for my between season's sale were waiting to go out."
Rebuked, Tim and Martha left over sinning: and Tim put Enoch Harries' posters in places where they should not have been put, wherefore Enoch smiled upon him.
"Try will I some further," said Tim by and by.
"Don't you crave too much," advised Martha. "The Bad Man craved the pulpit of the Big Man."
"Shut your backhead. Out of school will Winnie be very near now."
"Speak clear."
"Ask Enoch Harries will I to make her his servant."