Mrs. Dundle gave a horrified exclamation.
“My patience, man! Don’t bring that here! Vicar would never take bones from the churchyard. ’Tis animals’ bones he’s all agog for, and then only when they be as old as Noah’s ark.”
“I’ll put it back in the mould when parson’s seen it; but I tell you, Mrs. Durdle, ’tis a marvel. That’s a giant’s shank bone, and he must ha’ stood nine feet high—poor chap, think o’ that! I’m glad there’s not so much o’ me. Think o’ nine feet o’ rheumatics!”
“Well, rheumatics or no rheumatics, I’m sorry for his wife,” said Durdle, laughing. “She must have needed to be a rare good knitter to keep him in hose! If you must leave the thing for the Vicar, let me give it a good dustin’ out o’ window first. Ah! Zachary, after all, ’tis ill work jesting over bones when England’s strewn with the bones o’ them as has been killed in this weary war.”
“You’re right, Mrs. Durdle—you’re right. ’Twill be three years come Lammastide since the King set up his standard at Nottingham, and ever since naught but battles and sieges, plunderings and threatenings. And now there’s this plaguey garrison hard by at Canon Frome, with a Governor that sticks at nothing.”
“What! Colonel Norton?” said the housekeeper, raising her eyebrows. “Why, he be always comin’ to see Vicar. But between you and me, Zachary, ’tis Mistress Hilary’s pretty face, I take it, that draws him.”
“Then, Mrs. Durdle, for pity’s sake have a care o’ your young lady, for I hear little enough to his credit. But I thought Mistress Hilary had been courted by a young spark at Hereford?”
“Eh, to be sure, so she was. She and young Mr. Gabriel Harford were like lovers since they were no higher than this table. But the war put a stop to that, and from being fast friends they became foes, the more’s the pity.”
“Well, like master, like man, as the proverb hath it,” said the sexton, stooping to root up a plantain from the turf. “Vicar he says, he’ll have nought to do with wars and fightings, for he be a man o’ peace. And so be I, Mrs. Durdle, so be I. But beware of yon Governor o’ Canon Frome, for there’s many a wench will have cause to rue the day when he came to Herefordshire.”
“For my part, I like the gentleman well enough. He’s a fine, handsome officer, and the Vicar always enjoys his visits,” said Durdle, pouncing like a bird of prey on the laboriously-woven spider’s web which she just then saw in a corner of the window.