"I lay it was nothun to the calling over he had from Jasper."
"Where is Jasper?"
"Been indoors ever since: a touch of the old trouble, the missus told Jones when he called."
"That's a pity. This would've soothed his sore."
One or two observed that that fared to soothe theirs; for there was no reaction on the safe side of the fence. But the worst said in the Suffolk tongue was invariably capped by a different order of voice, which chimed in now.
"The best thing Carlton can do is to cockle up with his church. The governor'll build you a new church and find a new man to fill it. There's nobody keener on a change as it is. I should like to be there when he hears . . ."
The speaker was smoking a cigarette on a barrow wheeled from the shed. He might have been watching a display of fireworks, and one which was beginning to bore him. His unmoved eye sought change. It found the sexton hobbling in the glare.
"Hi, Busby! Come here, I want you. What the dickens do you mean by setting fire to the church?"
"Me set fire to it, Master Sidney? Me set a church afire? He! he! you allus fare to have yer laugh."
"It will be no laughing matter for you when you're run in for it, Busby."