It was Paul Drayton.
"Burn my body, and what's on now?" he said, as the gang reached the church.
"Rush-bearing, I reckon," answered Tom o' Dint.
"And what's rush-bearing?"
"You know, Mister Paul," said the postman, "rush-bearing—the barns rush-bearing—St. Peter's Day, you know."
"Oh, ay, I know—rush-bearing. Let me see, ain't it once a year?"
"What, man, but you mind the days when you were a bit boy and went a-rushing yersel'?" said the blacksmith.
"Coorse, coorse, oh, ay, I ain't forgotten them days. Let me see, it's a kind of a harvest-home, ain't it?"
"Nowt o' the sort," said Dick, the miller, testily. "Your memory's failing fast, Mister Ritson."
"And that's true, old fence. I'll never be the same man again after that brain fever I had up in London—not in the head-piece, you know."