“I do like a man to stick to men who be in the same line o’ life—o’ Sundays, anyway—that I do so.”
“’Tis like all the doings of folk who don’t know what a day’s work is, that’s what I say.”
“My belief is the man’s not to blame; ’tis she—she’s the bitter weed!”
“No, not altogether. He’s a poor gawk-hammer. Look at his sermon yesterday.”
“His sermon was well enough, a very good guessable sermon, only he couldn’t put it into words and speak it. That’s all was the matter wi’ the sermon. He hadn’t been able to get it past his pen.”
“Well—ay, the sermon might have been good; for, ’tis true, the sermon of Old Eccl’iastes himself lay in Eccl’iastes’s ink-bottle afore he got it out.”
Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing the last stitch tight, could afford time to look up and throw in a word at this point.
“He’s no spouter—that must be said, ’a b’lieve.”
“’Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with the man, as far as spout do go,” said Spinks.
“Well, we’ll say nothing about that,” the tranter answered; “for I don’t believe ’twill make a penneth o’ difference to we poor martels here or hereafter whether his sermons be good or bad, my sonnies.”