“But—but—you’ll be getting yourself into trouble about it,” sobbed Mrs Purkis. “Please don’t let him say no more, Mr Ruggles.”
“Women is so soft, Mr Ruggles,” said Purkis, benevolently.
“Not always, sir—not always,” said Tim, standing first upon one leg, then upon the other, and rubbing the nap off his shabby hat till there was quite a bald place. “Not always, sir; I’ve known them as was very hard.”
“So have I, sir,” said Mr Purkis, importantly, as a county magistrate pronouncing a sentence,—“so have I, sir; and I says to myself—Joseph Purkis, you’ve been parish officer at St Runnle’s a many years now, and with that there stain about the church, your uniform is a getting tarnished, and your sooperiors will look down upon you till you clear it away. Them boxes are in your charge, and therefore you owe a dooty to yourself to set all right. He didn’t look at you at all last Sunday, the vicar didn’t; and how do you know but what he suspects you, same as he may any innercent person? He may even now think as you have a hand in it, and be writing out your resignation for you. And really, Joseph Purkis, I says, it looks as if it were either you—”
“O Joseph—Joseph!” sobbed Mrs Purkis.
“Be quiet, woman, can’t you?” shouted Purkis. “Either you,” he continued, slapping the counter with the shoe, “or some one else familiar with the place.”
“Oh!” gasped Mrs Purkis.
“Now, just you go in there, and shut that door after you, Mrs Purkis, if you please,” said the beadle, more importantly than ever; and, taking his other hand from his pocket, he opened the parlour door as if it had been a pew, and made way with a flourish of the shoe for his wife to enter; while that lady, whose society had now become too demonstrative to be pleasant, raised her hands appealingly to the Wellingtons hung around the shop, as if to ask them to bear witness that it was in spite of her advice Mr Purkis persisted in committing himself. But the next minute she was invisible, on account of the dingy muslin blind over the half glass-door, and Mr Purkis walked back Astur-like in his stately stride.
“So, Mr Ruggles,” he said, “speaking as a man to a man, I felt it to be my dooty, for the benefit of all parties concerned, to watch, sir; and I did watch, sir, night after night, sir, day after day, sir; and where do you think I was, sir? Why, high up, sir, in the pulpit, with the door jest ajar, and a few cushions, to make the place a bit easy. Ah! sir, I’ve seen Mr Jared Pellet and Ichabod Gunnis come, sir, and go; and often, when that dog of a boy has come by himself a waiting for the organist, I’ve been at my wits’ ends, sir, to see that there young dog a sliding down the bannisters of the gallery, or a swinging on the pew-doors, and my fingers have itched to that degree, sir, to get hold of my cane, that I ain’t been hardly able to bear it. It’s been orful, sir, sometimes—orful to see the wicked young villin! What do you think of a boy getting into the reading-desk, and beginning, ‘Dearly beloved brethren,’ and then going down to the clerk’s desk and singing ‘Amen,’ just like our old man? Why, sir, one night I felt a’most ready to bust with indignation when he came down first, with Mr Pellet stopping up in the loft to think, I s’pose. What do you think the young dog did, sir? Why, he took the kiver off the font, sir, and then if he didn’t go and commit sacrilege, and defame and disgrace the beautiful old stone thing by climbing up and standing upon his head, sir, in the font, and kicking his heels together, and playing up the what’s-his-name’s delight.
“Ah! he’s a bad un, that boy. What do you think he did another night, sir? Put me in a cold prespiration he did, and then made me rise up with that big pulpit-cushion in my two hands. I should have heaved it and knocked him over like a skittle; only I knew it would not only upset him but all my plans as well; so I sat down again and filled my mouth full of pocket-handkerchief to stop back the indignation, for my pot was hot with thorns. What was he a doing of, sir? Why, I’ll tell you. A dog! he’d got both his shoes off, and one in each hand, a walking all over the church backards and forrards and ziggery-zaggery, balancing hisself like a monkey the while. Not very wrong that you’ll think, Mr Ruggles; but he was doing of it all on the narrow tops of the pews; and hang me, sir, if he didn’t try to jump across the middle aisle, only he came down flop on his back, and got up whimpering, and limped out of the church as hard as he could go. Then, I’ve seen Mr—what, sir?”