Churchwarden (thinking of the rotation of crops).  Just what I told un, sir—­just what I told ’un.  “You keeps on a-wheating of it and a-wheating of it,” I says; “why don’t you tater it?” says I.

At Badsey objections were soon heard to the innovation of the surpliced choir and improved music in the restored church; one old villager, living close by, expressed himself as follows concerning the entry of the Vicar and choir, in procession, from the new vestry: 

“They come in with them boys all dressed up like a lot of little parsons, and the parson behind ’em just like the old Pope hisself.  But there ain’t no call for me to go to church now, for I can set at home and hear ’em a baarlin’ [noise like a calf] and a harmenin [amening] in me own house.”

On a similar occasion, in another parish where more elaborate music had been introduced, an old coachman, given to much devotional musical energy, told me as a sore grievance:  “You know, sir, I’d used to like singin’ a bit myself, but now, as soon as I’ve worked myself up to a tidy old pitch, all of a sudden they leaves off, and I be left a bawlin’!”

Among various special weekday services I remember a Confirmation when an elderly Aldington parishioner had courageously decided to participate in the rite.  She was missing from the ceremony, and told my wife afterwards, in answer to inquiries, that a bad headache had prevented her from attending, adding:  “But there, you can’t stand agin your ’ead!”

I was at the house of a neighbouring Vicar where the Bishop of the diocese had been lunching shortly before, when there was a dish of very fine oranges on the table and another of Blenheim orange apples.  The Bishop was offered a Blenheim orange by the Vicar, who remarked that they came from his own garden.  The Bishop had probably never heard of a Blenheim orange, and the latter word directed his attention to the dish of oranges.  He examined them with great surprise, and exclaimed:  “Dear me!  I had no idea that oranges would come to such perfection out of doors in this climate.”

A capital story was told by a Bishop of Worcester, in connection with the efforts of the Church in that part of the country to alleviate the lot of the hop-pickers, who flock into Worcestershire in September by the thousand.  One of the mission workers, who had gone down to the hopyards, met a dilapidated individual in a country lane, who said he was “a picker.”  Pressed for further particulars, the man responded: 

“In the summer I picks peas and fruit; when autumn comes I picks hops; in the winter I picks pockets; and when I’m caught I picks oakum.  I’m kept nice and warm during the cold months, and when the fine days come round once more I starts pea-picking again.”

My second Vicar was a scholar, an excellent preacher of very condensed sermons; he conducted the services with great dignity, but his manner to the villagers