“Be an odd fellow, too, turned upside down, like many of the heads after ale and punch.”
“I don’t like it,” said Lydia. “I sees it with its blessed feet turned up and its comb down—helpless. It is real unchristian and inhuman to let it bide so.”
The churchwardens said, “Meddlin’ with aught on the steeple is darned expensive. Beside, ’tain’t everywhere you can find a steeplejack.”
So Lydia fidgeted and mused and schemed: that vane became the trouble of her life.
In at the shop door came simultaneously, from opposite directions, the builder and the mariner.
They had a curious knack, these men, of spying on each other, and of denying each other the opportunity of having a few words in private with the widow.
In this, however, the sailor had the advantage over the mason, for he was not daily engaged, as was the other. But Newbold so contrived that when he was absent, should Westcott endeavour to steal a march on him, his mother or his sister should invade the shop and so prevent privacy.
Which was the favoured swain neither could decide; but that was not wonderful, for Lydia had not decided for herself.
“Good-morning, mem,” said the mason. “I’ll just trouble you for an ounce of bird’s-eye.”