This missive despatched with his own hand Nehemiah turned his steps towards the Crown, feeling very much at peace with himself and fully entitled to bask in the sunshine of Polly’s ready smile. On the way he chanced across the pastor of Aenon Chapel, who was devoting his morning to calling upon sundry of his flock and getting up an appetite for his mid-day dinner.
“Good morning, Mr. Jones the very man I wanted to see. I’ve a crow to pull with you. Won’t there be the usual school treat this Whitsuntide?”
“Certainly, Mr. Wimpenny We’d a special prayer last meeting for a fine day.”
“Well, now, I go to Zion. But we Nonconformists are not so narrow as our Church friends, eh? So long as the good work goes on, that’s the main thing isn’t it?”
“Most assuredly, Mr. Wimpenny, most assuredly. We’re only tools in the great Worker’s hands.”
“Quite so, Mr. Jones, quite so; my sentiments to a T, only better expressed. Now I know these efforts of the Sunday School cost money. I’m not good enough to be a teacher; but you must let me help in my own way. I hoped you would have called, as your predecessor did, and asked for a subscription, then we could have had a comfortable chat,” and Nehemiah slipped a sovereign into the parson’s palm.
Now Mr. Jones had gone very recently over the list of subscribers to the various efforts and celebrations of Aenon Chapel, and flattered himself that he knew to a nicety the amount for which every inhabitant of Holmfirth “was good;” but he certainly could not remember to have seen Nehemiah Wimpenny’s name for so much as a widow’s mite. But perhaps the lawyer was one of those worthy men who do good by stealth and blush to find it known. So he had no qualms about pocketing the coin.
“They say open confession ’s good for the soul,” went on Nehemiah. “I was just on my way to have a nip and a snack at the Crown—just a glass of bitter, you know”—Oh! Nehemiah, Nehemiah!—“No use asking you, I know. The old Vicar, now, always had a glass of sherry with me when we met. But they say you are just ruining the trade, with your temperance sermons and your temperance missions. You mustn’t do that Mr. Jones; for if you shut up public-houses I might as well shut up shop too. Well, good day, good day.”
Mr. Jones’s face was beaming.
“Do they really say so?” he asked.