Jacky Budd touched his hat without a word, stuck one thumb into his arm-hole, and went off to inform the next person he met that “new parson” was a tartar and a teetotaler.
By this time Simeon Slee had gone off in another direction, and as the vicar was busy with his pocket-knife, pruning some trailing branches from the front windows, Mrs Slee came to announce that his breakfast was ready, and soon after relieved him of a difficulty.
“Going, eh, Mrs Slee? When?”
“I thowt we’d flit to-day, sir. We only came in to take charge of the house.”
“Have you a place to go to?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Humph! Well, it’s best, perhaps, Mrs Slee, for I am a frank man, and I don’t think your husband and I would agree. You couldn’t come and keep me right till I’ve got a housekeeper, I suppose?”
Mrs Slee could, and said she would; and that morning Jacky Budd helped the poor woman to “flit” her things to a neighbouring cottage, Simeon vowing that he’d “never set foot in the brutal priest’s house again.”
“You’re well shut of a bad lot, sir,” said Jacky Budd, turning to Mr Selwood, after the last items of the Slee impedimenta were off the premises, and he had looked round the wilderness of a garden, sighed, and wondered how he should ever get it in order.
“Think so, Budd?” said the vicar, drily.