"Thank you. Everybody can serve us: we want help from one and all," said Mr. Masterman.
"Ezacally so!" said Thomas. "And you must larn each man's value from those that know it—not by bitter experience. Likewise with the women. My sister can tell you, to threepence a day, what any female in this parish be good for; and as to the men, you'll do very well to come to me. I know 'em all—old and young—and their characters and their points—good and bad, crooked and odd. For we've got some originals among us, and I'm not going to deny it, haven't us, Eliza?"
"Every place have," she said.
"Might we sit down?" asked the man. "We'm of the bungy breed, as you see, and not so clever in our breathing as we could wish. But we'm here to go through the whole law and the prophets, so to speak, and we can do it better sitting."
"Please sit down," answered Dennis. Then he looked at his watch. "I can give you an hour," he said. "But I'm going to ride over to Bickleigh at nine o'clock, to see the vicar there."
"And a very nice gentleman you'll find him," declared Thomas. "Of course, Bickleigh be but a little matter beside Shaugh Prior. We bulk a good deal larger in the eyes of the nation, and can hold our heads so much the higher in consequence; but the Reverend Coaker is a very good, humble-minded man, and knows his place in a way that's a high example to the younger clergymen."
Miss Masterman cleared her throat, but her voice was none the less gruff.
"Perhaps you will now tell us what you have come for. We are busy people," she said.
Her brother deprecated this brevity and tried to tone it down, but Thomas accepted the lady's statement with great urbanity.
"Miss be right," he answered. "Busy as bees, I warrant—same as me and my own sister here. She don't wear out many chairs, do you, Eliza?"