“Jimmery!” exclaimed Matthew. “I never did in all my born days hear tell of the like o’ you! You won’t work an’ you won’t pray—’tis terrible. All the same, if you don’t get the vicarage again, an’ come as under-gardener to the squire, as he’ve offered you, I tell you frankly, friends though we be, that you’ll have to work harder than you’ve worked for twenty years.”
“I know it very well, Matt,” said Mr. Hannaford. “Your way an’ mine be different, root an’ branch; an’ I pray God as I may not have to come under you, for I’d hate it properly, an’ that’s the truth. An’ I do work, an’ I do pray likewise; an’ I’d back my chance of going up aloft with my last shirt, if there was any to take the bet. You’m too self-righteous along of your high wages—”
“Joseph! ’tis time you put on your black,” cried a voice from the cottage door.
Here grew a feeble honeysuckle that had been nailed up four years before, and still struggled gamely with a north aspect and neglect.
On the other side of the doorway was a thrush in a cage. It appeared too spiritless even to mount its wooden perch, but sat on the floor of its prison and listlessly pecked at nothing.
Mrs. Hannaford had a thin, flat figure, a hard mouth, keen eyes and a face like a fowl. Tremendous force of character marked her pale visage. The grey curls that hung there on each side of her narrow forehead looked like steel shavings.
“Dress,” she said, “an’ be quick about it. Ah, Mr. Smallridge—helping Joseph to waste his time.”
“Not me, ma’am; that’s about the only job he doesn’t want helping with. I’ve just been telling your man that if Mr. Budd to the vicarage doan’t need him, an’ he takes squire’s offer an’ comes to me, theer must be more work an’ less talk.”
“The new parson will want him,” said Mrs. Hannaford, decidedly. “Who should stick a spade in that earth after twenty-five years if not Joseph?”
“Very plants would cry out if anybody else was put awver them,” said Mr. Hannaford, sentimentally.