Farmer John was famous for his riddles. He made them all himself, in conversation with his wife—for he had not married early—and there was no man in the parish yet with brains enough to solve them. And if any one attempted it, the farmer always snubbed him.
"There now, ye be too deep for me!" Mr. Channing made a hole in the ground with his stick, as if Mr. Horner was at the bottom of it. "It requireth a good deal more than us have got, to get underneath your meaning, sir."
"No, Bob, no! It be very zimple, and zuitable too for your trade. A 'tatur cometh out of ground, when a' be ripe; but a man the zame way goeth underground. And a good thing for him, if he 'bideth there, according to what hath been done in these here parts, or a little way up country. No call for thee to laugh, Bob, at thy time of life, when behooveth thee to think over it. But I'll give thee an order for a pair of corduroys, and thou shalt have a few 'taturs, when the butt comes by. Us, as belongs to the Church, is bound to keep her agoing, when the hogs won't miss it! But there, Lord now, I want a score of nose-rings? Have 'e see'd anything of Joe Crang, this morning? We never heer'd nort of his anvil all the time! Reckon Joe had a drop too much at the Bush, last night."
"Why, here a' coom'th!" exclaimed the clerk. "Look, a' be claimbin' of an open gate! Whatever can possess the man? A' couldn't look more mazed and weist, if a hunderd ghostesses was after him?"
Joseph Crang, the blacksmith at Susscot ford, where the Susscot brook passed on its way to the Perle, was by nature of a merry turn, and showed it in his face. But he had no red now, nor even any black about him, and the resolute aspect, with which he shod a horse, or swung a big hammer, was changed into a quivering ghastly stare; his lips were of an ashy blue, like a ring of tobacco smoke; and as for his body, and legs, and clothes, they seemed to have nothing to do with one another.
"What aileth the man?" cried Mr. Channing, standing across, as he had the right to do, after bestraddling so many burials; "Master Joe Crang, I call upon thee to collect thy wits, and out with it."
"Joe, thy biggest customer hath a right to know thy meaning." Farmer John had been expecting to have to run away; but was put in courage by the clerk, and brought up his heels in a line with the old man's.
"Coompany, coompany is all I axes for," the blacksmith gasped weakly, as if talking to himself—"coompany of living volk, as rightly is alive."
"Us be all alive, old chap. But how can us tell as you be?" The clerk was a seasoned man of fourscore years, and knew all the tricks of mortality.
"I wish I wadn't. A'most I wish I wadn't, after all I zee'd last night. But veel of me, veel of me, Measter Channin', if you plaise to veel of me."