"And he's cleaned his gate with sand-paper," added young Stanbury.
"'Tis written on again since then," said Mr. Shillabeer. "I was that way not long since, and there's words written there again--namely, 'God is Love.'"
"Strange thing is that Ernest Maunder on his nightly rounds should have never catched the man," mused Crocker.
"Not at all," explained Mr. Moses. "The man no doubt knows the way of Ernest's beat as well as Ernest himself do, and avoids him. They were saying yesterday that it might even be parson's self; but of course that's a rash and silly idea. His reverence is as much interested in it as anybody--especially since he found 'The Lord loveth a cheerful giver' on his own back-garden door--the one that leadeth out into the lane. He holds that the man means well; all the same, he wants him catched and stopped."
"What could be done to him if they did lay hold on him?" asked Reuben Shillabeer.
"Why, there you beat me," answered Moses. "I'm sure I don't know. The lord of the manor might talk to him; but I don't think any law has been broken, whereas 'tis certain many people have been made to think about religion in consequence."
"My mother for one," asserted Mr. Snell. "She came across 'After death the Judgment' 'pon a broken paling out Yennadon Down way, and it turned her faint on the instant and made her very unwell. But 'twas all to the good, as she herself declared two days afterwards. The man's doing a very proper work, whoever the man is."
"With a pot of blacking and letters cut out of tin he does it," said Bartley Crocker. "It ought to be pretty easy to find him out. He must have been round here only a day or two ago. I see he's been busy at the bottom of your paddock, 'Dumpling.'"
"Yes," admitted Mr. Shillabeer. "He knows a bit about everybody. 'Swear not at all' he put up on my fence, down the bottom end of my cabbage plot. That ought to be a lesson to us in this bar, for, try as I will, the crooked words slip out among you."
"I quite agree," said Mr. Snell. "I catched myself saying 'damn' to a young dog only yesternight. And no fault of the dog."