“Precious little good ’e ever done, or ever will do, mum. And ’is preaching! You should ’ear ’im.”
“Do you tramp five miles to hear him preach?” she asked.
“Wot, me? And wot would the vicar do without me, do you suppose? I ’ear quite enough without going to ’is old meeting-place. ’E practises ’is old sarmons night-times, after me and the missis is a-bed. You’d reckon it was a nuisance if ’e waked you up, as he wakes me and Hannah in the dead o’ night sometimes, screeching an’ ’ollering. ‘Is your Lord deaf?’ I asks en; ‘because if ’E be, us bain’t,’ I says, ‘and us can’t sleep for your noise.’ ’E’s gone away now. Got a job at a farm near ’is young woman; an’ I ’opes ’e stops there. I don’t ’old wi’ religion outside o’ church, and then I likes it shortened like. Our vicar is the best vicar Moresby’s ever ’ad, but ’e do make ’is sarmons long. Seems I could say as much as ’e do in ’alf the time.”
Mrs Chadwick laughed. Robert’s garrulity would seem to discredit this conceit.
“I like his sermons, Robert,” she said. “I’m glad I am going to live at Moresby. Later I shall visit Mrs Robert, if you think she won’t mind.”
“She won’t mind, mum,” Robert answered. “She’ll be proud. I’m not sure it won’t make ’er over proud,” he added reflectively. “Hannah gets obstroperous when she’s took notice of. Better let ’er think you come to see me, I reckon.”
She nodded brightly, and left him standing in the roadway looking after her retreating figure, and from it to the shining coins lying in the horny hollow of his palm. Perhaps it was due less to the Byronic temperament than to the natural love of every loyal subject for the King’s portrait set in silver that Mrs Chadwick won from thenceforth Robert’s unshakable respect. Being a man actuated by occasional chivalrous promptings, he drank to her good health conscientiously during the following days. But from a fear of making Hannah “obstroperous” he refrained from mentioning that interview with Mrs Chadwick and its amicable finish; and, in case Hannah went through his pockets while he slept, which experience taught him was the way of wives, he put temptation out of her way by concealing the coins beneath the altar cloth in the church. Familiarity with holy things had bred an undesirable freedom in Robert’s views.
The vicar and his wife stood at the vicarage gate and waved farewell to Mr Musgrave’s guests as the car drove past. Mr Musgrave on this occasion accompanied the ladies, speeding, as Mrs Errol remarked, the departure, if he had not obeyed strictly the prescribed rules of hospitality by welcoming the coming guest.
“Well, that’s over,” she said, as the car turned the bend and disappeared from sight. She tucked her hand within her husband’s arm, and walked with him a few yards down the road. “I shall be glad when they are settled at the Hall. It will make things gayer.”
“It will certainly do that,” he agreed. “Gaiety and Mrs Chadwick are synonymous terms.”