“Stattice?” said the vicar, inquiringly.
“Yes, sir, status—statute-hiring, you know, when the servants leave. They call it ‘pag-rag’ day here.”
“Ha, do they?” said the vicar; “well, I suppose I shall learn all in time. What may ‘pag-rag’ mean?”
“They call it so here, sir,” said the young man, smiling. “They say a man pags a sack on his back, and I suppose it means they carry off their clothes then.”
“I see,” said the vicar; “and you have some strange characters about at such times? By the way, I saw a nice respectable couple turn in at the Bull and Cucumber, as I came by. They’d got poacher stamped on their faces plainly.—Head bad?”
“Sudden stab, sir, that’s all,” said John Maine, holding his hands to his head and shuddering.
“Ah, you must go back and lie down as soon as I have done with you, or else I must find you a sofa for an hour. We’ll see how you are. Perhaps we’ll walk home together.”
“No, no, sir, I shall be all right directly. Don’t do that, sir. Mr Bultitude—”
“Mr Bultitude has too much respect for you, John Maine, to let you go about in a state of suffering; so just hold your tongue, sir, for you’re my patient.”
A few minutes after he laid his hand on the gate, with the effect of making Jacky Budd start up from his seat on the bottom of a large flower-pot, and begin vigorously hoeing at some vegetables in the now trim garden.