"High Jarks, tell un."
"Us was going to your house."
"Hold your tongue, will 'e, and let High Jarks speak."
The Sergeant took discipline, and told his tale in a few strong words, which made the Farmer's hair stand up.
"Let me see the proof," was all he said; for his brain was going round, being still unseasoned to any whirl fiercer than rotation of farm-crops. All the others fell behind him, with that sense of order which still swayed the impulse of an English crowd; for he was now the foremost layman in the parish, and everybody knew that the Parson was laid up. The gloom of some black deed fell upon them; and they passed along the street like a funeral.
"Clap the big gate to, and shoot the iron bar across. No tramping inside more than hath been a'ready."
Master Horner gave this order, and it was obeyed, even by those who excluded themselves. At the west end, round the tower, was a group of "foreign" workmen—as the artisans from Exeter were called—but under orders from Mr. Adney they held back, and left the parish matter to the natives thereof.
"Now come along with me, the men I call for;" commanded the Churchwarden, with his hand upon the bars, as he rose to the authority conferred upon him; "and they be Sergeant Jakes, Clerk Channing, Bob that hath ridden from Walderscourt, and Constable Tapscott, if so be he hath arrived."
"I be here, sure enough, and my staff along o' me—hath the pictur' of His Majesty upon him. Make way, wull 'e, for the Officer of the King?"
Then these men, all in a cold sweat more or less—except Sergeant Jakes, who was in a hot one—backing up one another, took the narrow path which branched to the right from the Churchyard cross, to the corner where brave Colonel Waldron had been laid.