"Theer's the twinge, an' I'd have 'e put that in for sartain," declared Churdles. "If her reverenced un, her wouldn't go about in high-wheeled, cranky dog-carts with t'other. Ess, put that down; together wi' any light hint against the lust of the flaish, so long as you can find it set out in parlour language."
Mr. Cramphorn took pencil and paper to his task; and Gaffer Ash, with the help of a round candlestick, drew a shaky circle in the middle of a sheet of foolscap. "Our names will all stick around," he said; "an' in the midst Jonah will set chapter an' verse. Perhaps ten verses might be enough to right the wrong, an' if you'm quick, Cramphorn, us'll get it in a henvelope an' addressed to missis, then slip it off to bed an' leave the manifestation 'pon the table against her comes home."
"More respectful to send it through the post," ventured Collins; and Churdles admitted that it might be so.
"P'raps you'm right theer, Henery. Ess, for sure you be; an' you'm gwaine into Chaggyford wi' the cart fust thing to-morrow, so you can post it theer; then 'twill come wi' all the dignity of the mail," he said.
Jonah finished his pious task and wrote his name; Churdles Ash, who had only learned to write in middle-age, set down a shaky signature, half schoolboy's, half senile in its wavering line; Pinsent wrote a laboured but well-regulated hand, and Mr. Collins also subscribed, yet with such uneasiness that one might have imagined he was signing his own death-warrant.
"Even now I'd like to hear Maister Endicott 'pon it," he murmured. "If he was against it, I'd never willingly countenance the step."
"He'm wan of the family; an' whenever was it knawn as a female gived credit to them of her awn blood for sense?" inquired Jonah. "Why, 'tis last thing they think of. No; us o' the land will send this here for gude or evil. We'm doin' our duty an' shan't be no worse thought of. She'm a wonnerful woman—a queen among 'em at her best—always was so—an' she'll think the better of us for this transaction."
"She'm just the sort to put a bit on our wages if the 'round robin' worked to her betterment—a most grateful woman," said Sam Pinsent, who from doubt had suddenly sprung to the extremity of hope.
"Ess—an' if her didn't, he would, so like as not," declared Gaffer Ash. "If this sets all right an' makes 'em happy an' sensible an' onderstandin', in the name of the Lard and of Paul, how much smoother 'twill be for all parties!"
"An' if all works well an' nobody don't do nothin'," suggested Pinsent, "it might be a question whether us shouldn't send in another to remind 'em of theer well-wishers. However, that's in the future."