And Lucy looked troubled with that trouble that seeks disguise in constrained cheerfulness.
“It’s a woman, then,” said Ben to himself. “Who’d ha’ thowt it, but whooa i’ th’ name o’ wonder can it be?”
Pursuant to his resolve, Ben, the next Sunday, volunteered to accompany Tom to Chapel, to Tom’s undisguised surprise.
“Well, yo’ see, lad,” explained the Senior, inwardly congratulating himself on the astuteness of his reply, “what’s gooid enough for thee ’ll daatless be gooid enough for thi partner ’at is to be.”
The Rev. David Jones was a man of middle stature, quick and nervous in his movements, and quick and nervous in his delivery. He had all the fire and not a little of the poetic feeling and imagination of his Welsh ancestry. He had the great gift of being able to see and understand the very crux of an abstruse problem and to state it lucidly. Then, when you held your breath for the solution, he would break into a rhapsody, and, in a torrent of words, metaphor piled upon metaphor in dazzling extravagance of phrase, he would scale the gamut of the emotions, and close the exordium as in the wild frenzy of an ancient seer.
“Ther’s a gooid deeal o’clout, Tom,” whispered Ben, “but aw’n nooan come to th’ puddin’.” But Ben spoke to ears that heard not. The rhapsodies of the eloquent Gael were thrown away on Tom. His eyes were fixed on the ample pew in which Mr. and Mrs. Tinker sat erect and listening apparently with much attention to the sermon. Mr. Tinker’s regard indeed, appeared to be more critical than appreciative.
“Jabez is too owd a bird to be ta’en wi’ chaff,” thought Ben. “Th’ parson’s main clever, reight enough, but there’s one yonder’s gotten his measure, or awm mista’en.”
But neither on his employer nor on the severe face of Mrs. Tinker was Tom’s wrapt look so intently fixed. By her uncle’s side sat Dorothy, looking, said Ben, in his afternoon account to Hannah, “just as if butter wouldn’t melt in her maath. She nivver took her e’en fro’ off her Bible or her hymn book or th’ parson, barrin’ once, an’ if ’oo didn’t look plainly at Tom then ’oo looked at me, that’s all aw can say. But it weren’t a look straight out o’ her e’en, yo’ mun understand, nor wi’ her eyes starin’ out o’ her yead, like some wenches ’ll look at a young felly; but just a sort o’ a squint aat o’th tail o’ her e’en, an’ then th’ lashes fell part way ovver ’em, an’ theer ’oo wer’ gazin’ at th’ parson as if ’ood nivver blinked. It’s a mercy ’oo didn’t look at me th’ same way again, or I’d ha’ made a fooil o’ missen some road or other, an’ chance it. An’ Tom, why he went as red as a peony, an’ his hand trem’led so he dropped a book an’ had to scrat it up wi’ his feet by reason o’th pew bein’ too narrow for him to get his yed dahn to reick it up wi’ his hand i’ th’ ordinary way. Aw poised his shin for ’im under th’ seeat to make him mind his manners for when aw do go to a chapel aw like to behave some-bit-like, an’ after that he listened to th’ sarmon as good as gowd.”
“And do you remember the text, father?”
“To be sure aw do, trust me for that. Aw gate Tom to nick it with his thumb in his book, an aw wer’ settlin’ dahn comfortable to th’ exposition when aw gate th’ full blast o’ Miss Dorothy’s look, choose ’oo it wer’ meant for. It had liked to ha’ bowled me ovver, but aw poo’d missen together, an’ aw’n getten th’ heads o’th discoorse. Reick us th’ Bible, missus. It wer’ eighth Romans, thirtieth. Read it up, Lucy.”