“Cry out for joy, I reckon,” murmured Matthew, but not loud enough for his friend’s wife to overhear him. “Theer’s wan thing you should know,” he continued, changing the subject. “Parson Budd be a tremendous Church of Englander, so I heard squire say. He’ve got his knife into all chapel-people an’ free-thinkers an’ such like.”
“’Tis a free country,” answered Mrs. Hannaford, and her curls almost appeared to clatter as she shook her head. “He’d better mind his awn business, which be faith, hope an’ charity, an’ not poke his nose into other people’s prayers!”
“As for religion,” declared Joseph, “the little as I’ve got time for in that line be done along with my missis an’ the Plymouth Brethren. But theer ban’t no smallness in me. Room in the Lard’s mansions for all of us; an’ if the roads be narrer, theer’s plenty of ’em, an’ plenty of gates to the Golden Jerusalem.”
Mrs. Hannaford frowned.
“You’m too free with your views, Joseph Hannaford,” she said. “You’d best call to mind what pastor said to chapel last Sunday, ’bout the camel an’ the needle’s eye. Many be called an’ few chosen, so theer’s an end of it. The Brethren’s way be the right way an’ the strait way; an’ ban’t your business to be breaking gates into heaven for them as do wrong, an’ think wrong, an’ haven’t a spark of charity, an’ be busy about the Dowl’s work in every other cottage in this village. I know what church folks be—nobody better.”
Mr. Smallridge, himself of the established religion, retreated before this outburst.
“Hell of a female that,” he said to himself. “How the man can keep heart after all these years be a mystery. Yet she sits light upon him, seemingly.”
Then Joseph, with some groans and grumbles, went to decorate himself, that the new incumbent might smile upon him and reappoint him to the care of the vicarage garden. He shaved very carefully, washed, showed Mrs. Hannaford his finger-nails,—a matter he usually shirked,—donned his best attire, and finally started beside his wife to appear before Mr. Budd.
“’Tis a grievous choice,” he said; “an’ if the man doan’t take me on, I’ll have to go to the Hall under Smallridge—a very ill-convenient thing to think upon.”
“’Tis a matter of form, but better the Hall than any paltering with what’s right; an’ better be under Smallridge than against your conscience.”