"As you please, Sir Richard. Faugh! what an awful—fuff!—stench there is. I have no doubt they won't be sorry to get away. Here, my men, here's half-a-crown for you. Go and get something to drink and come back in an hour."
"Thank yer honour!" cried one of the men. "An' sure, by St. Patrick's bones, we want something to drink, for the stench in the church sticks in my blessed throat like a marrow bone, so it does."
"Get out," said the beadle; "I hates low people, and hirish. They thinks no more of beetles than nothink in the world."
The workmen retired, laughing; and when the church was clear of them, the churchwarden said to Sir Richard Blunt—
"Did you ever, Sir Richard, smell such a horrid charnel-house sort of stench as comes up from that opening in the floor of the old church?"
Sir Richard shook his head, and was about to say something, when the sound of a footstep upon the pavement of the church made him look round, and he saw a fat, pursy-looking individual approaching.
"Oh, it's Mr. Vickley, the overseer," said the beadle. "I hopes as yer is well, Mr. Vickley. Here's a horrid smell."
"God bless me!" cried the overseer, as with his fat finger and thumb he held his snub nose. "What's this? It's worse and worse."
"Yes, sir," said the beadle; "talking of the smell, we have let the cat out of the bag, I think."
"Good gracious! put her in again, then. It can't be a cat."