"However, it was twenty-one weeks before I got the final clearing-up. Thirty-three weeks to the very day, reckoning from the Saturday which I bought the 'at, comes another message from the Rectory: 'Please send six pounds of butter as before.'
"Next day I went to church as usual. No sooner did Mr. Abel give out his text than I saw it all, plain as daylight. The text was something about 'robbery of God.' There was not a thing I've told you about the 'at that was not put into that sermon. Of course, it was roundabout—all about pearls and precious stones and such like; but it was my box-hat he was driving at all the time. It was Solomon mostly as he talked about; but I nearly jumped out of my seat when he made Solomon shake his fist at the 'Oly Temple on Mount Zion and say almost the very words as I said as I drove by the church that Saturday night. First he went for me, and then he went for Charley Shott, and I can tell you that he twisted the tails of both on us to a pretty tune! Says I to myself, 'Don't I know who's put you up to preaching that sermon?' And more than seven months gone since it happened! Think of that for a memory! And she sitting in her pew with a face as smooth as a dish o' cream.
"Well, I was churchwarden that year, and of course had to take the plate round. When I comes to the Rector's pew I see Mrs. Abel openin' a little purse. First she takes out a sovereign, and then a shilling, and says to me, quite clear, as she dropped 'em into the plate, 'All right, Mr. Church, I'll be even with you yet! And here's another two pounds fifteen. You can tell Charley Shott and Tom Henderson, and all the lot on 'em, as they've paid for their Sunday 'ats. And give 'em all my kind regards.' Then she counts the money out as deliberate as if she were payin' the cook's wages, and drops it into the plate wi' a clatter as could be heard all over the church. She must ha' kep' me waitin' full two minutes, all the congregation starin' and wonderin' what was up, and me lookin' like a silly calf.
"When I come out of church my wife says to me, 'Sam, what's that you and Mrs. Abel was whispering about?' 'You mind your own business,' I says, and for the first time since we were married we was very near coming to words."
A GRAVEDIGGER SCENE
It was Sunday evening, and the congregation had dispersed. I was making my way into the church to take a last look at a famous fourteenth-century tomb. Not a soul was visible; but the sound of a pick and the sight of fresh earth announced that the sexton was at work digging a grave. I walked to the spot. A bald head, the shining top of which was now level with the surface of the ground, raised the hope that he would prove to be a sexton of the old school. I was not disappointed.
"Good evening," I said.
"A good evening to you, sir," said the sexton, pausing in his work with the air of a man who welcomed an excuse to rest.
"And whose grave is that you're digging?" I asked.