the congregashun got a bit reconciled, folks began to allow the new eye improved Mennear’s pulpit manner, an’ guessed that, arter all, et mou’t be a powerful engine for effectual salvashun.  Et had a dead appearance, ef you understands me, sir, and yet a sort o’ gashly wakefulness, like a thing onhuman, ‘cos o’ cou’se et niver winked; th’ ould man cudn’ ha’ winked, not for a fi’-pund note, for the thing was that big et strained his eyelid like a drum.  ‘Sides which, et had a way o’ keepin’ order ’mong the worshippers that you cudn’ believe onless you seed it; for, let alone the colour o’t, you niver knawed whether ’twas fixed on you or ten pews off, but somehow felt dead-sure ‘twas you all the time, an’ cudn’ ha’ moved, not if you had a blue-tailed fly inside the back o’ your collar.

“Well, sir, nat’rally the Meetin’ House began to fill agen, at fust out o’ curiosity, but by-’m-by the list of Admitted Members began to fill up.  Folk cudn’ hold out when th’ ould Lawyer ramped on ‘bout t’ other world an’ there was that eye fixin’ mun an’ lookin’ as though et had been there.  I needn’ tell ‘ee th’ ould man wore et ivery Sunday:  ‘deed, he wore et most days, but tuk et out o’ nights, I’ve heerd, for ‘twudn’ shut when he slep’, but used to scare ould Deb’rah Mennear fairly out of her sken o’ moonshiny nights, when the light comed in ‘pon et.  An’ even when her got ’n to lave et off, her used allays to put a tay-cup ‘pon top o’t afore closin’ an eye.

“So et went on, sir, till wan Sunday mornin’, when the Lawyer was fairly warmin’ to hes work over the weckedness o’ backsliders an’ the wrath to come, he whacks the cush’n more’n ord’nary vi’lent, an’ I reckon that made the eye work loose.  Anyway, out et drops, and clatters down along the floor o’ the Meetin’ House.

“Now Deacon Hoskins i’ them days had charge o’ the Sunday-school boys.  He was a short-sighted man, the Deacon, tho’ that were hes misfortun’; but he had faults as well, an’ wan o’ these was a powerful knack o’ droppin’ off to sleep durin’ sarmon-time.  Hows’ever, he managed very tidily, for he knawed he was bound to wake hissel’ so soon as he began to snore, an’ then he’d start up sudden an’ fetch the nighest boy a rousin’ whistcuff ‘pon the side o’ the head to cover the noise he’d made, an’ cry out, ’I’ve a-caught ’ee agen, ha’ I?  I’ll tache ‘ee to interrup’ the word o’ Grace wi’ your gammut [8] an’ may-games!’—­an’ he’d look round like as ef he’d say, ‘Sorry to interrup’, brethren, but desceplin’ es desceplin’!’ Many’s the time I’ve a-seed ‘n do this, an’ you may take my word, sir, ’twas so good as a play!”

Now this morning Deacon Hoskins was takin’ forty winks as ushul, when the clatter made by th’ ould Mennear’s eye makes ’n set up, wide-awake an’ starin’.  This time, jedgin’ by the noise, he tuk a consait that the boys had been a-playin’ marbles sure ’nuff; so he takes two at haphazard, knacks their heads togither, an’ then looks about.  Fust thing he sees es th’ eye lying out ‘pon the aisle an’ lookin’ for all the world like a big shiny glass-alley.