“A walkin’ sermon!” said Mr. Chappie.
Doctor Parsons was waiting for Billy at Monks Barton, and if John Grimbal had been brusque, the practitioner proved scarcely less so. He pronounced Mr. Blee but little hurt, bandaged his arm, plastered his head, and assured him that a pipe and a glass of spirits was all he needed to fortify his sinking spirit. The party ate and drank, raised a cheer for Miller Lyddon and then went homewards. Only Mr. Chappie and Gaffer Lezzard entered the house and had a wineglass or two of some special sloe gin. Mr. Lezzard thawed and grew amiable over this beverage, and Mr. Chappie repeated Billy’s lofty sentiments at the approach of death for the benefit of Miller Lyddon.
“’T is awnly my fearless disposition,” declared the wounded man with great humility; “no partic’lar credit to me. I doan’t care wan iotum for the thought of churchyard mould—not wan iotum. I knaw the value of gude rich soil tu well; an’ a man as grudges the rames[3] of hisself to the airth that’s kept un threescore years an’ ten’s a carmudgeonly cuss, surely.”
“An’ so say I; theer’s true wisdom in it,” declared Mr. Chapple, while the miller nodded.
“Theer be,” concluded Gaffer Lezzard. “I allus sez, in my clenching way, that I doan’t care a farden damn what happens to my bones, if my everlasting future be well thought on by passon. So long as I catch the eye of un an’ see um beam ’pon me to church now an’ again, I’m content with things as they are.”
“As a saved sawl you ’m in so braave a way as the best; but, to say it without rudeness, as food for the land a man of your build be nought, Gaffer,” argued Mr. Chapple, who viewed the veteran’s withered anatomy from his own happy vantage ground of fifteen stone.
But Gaffer Lezzard would by no means allow this.
“Ban’t quantity awnly tells, my son. ’T is the aluminium in a man’s bones that fats land—roots or grass or corn. Anybody of larnin’, ’ll tell ’e that. Strip the belly off ’e, an’, bone for bone, a lean man like me shaws as fair as you. No offence offered or taken, but a gross habit’s mere clay and does more harm than gude underground.”
Mr. Chapple in his turn resented this contemptuous dismissal of tissue as matter of no agricultural significance. The old men went wrangling home; Miller Lyddon and Billy retired to their beds; the moon departed behind the distant moors; and all the darkened valley slept in snow and starlight.