“Ay indeed!” murmured Walden, absently—­“That’s all right!”

Bainton paused expectantly.  No further word however was vouchsafed to him, and he knew by experience that such silence implied his master’s wish to be left alone.  With an almost magisterial gravity he surveyed the Reverend John’s bent head, and with another scrutinising glance, ascertained the nature of the occupation on which his fingers were engaged, whereupon his face expressed the liveliest amazement.  Shouldering his ladder, he went his way,—­and once out of earshot gave vent to a long low whistle.

“It do beat me!” he said, slapping one corduroy-trousered leg vehemently—­“It do beat me altogether—­it do reely now!  I ain’t no swearin’ sort, an’ bad langwidge ain’t my failin’, but I feel like takin’ a bet, or sayin’ a swear when I sees a sensible man like, makin’ a fool of hisself!  If Passon ain’t gone looney all on a suddint, blest if I knows wot’s come to ’im.  ’Tain’t Miss Vancourt,- -’tain’t no one nor nothink wot I knows on, but I’m blowed if he worn’t sittin’ under that tree, like a great gaby, a’ fastenin’ a mis’able threepenny bit to ’is watch-chain!  Did anyone ever ’ear the like!  A threepenny bit with a ’ole in it!  To think of a man like that turnin’ to the sup’stitions o’ maids an’ wearin’ a oley bit o’ silver!  It do make me wild!—­it do reely now!”

And snorting with ineffable disdain, Bainton almost threw his ladder into the tool-shed, thereby scaring a couple of doves who had found their way within, and who now flew out with a whirr of white wings that glistened like pearl in the sunlight as they spread upwards and away into the sky.

“A threepenny bit with a ’ole in it!” he repeated, mechanically watching the birds of peace in their flight—­“An’ on his watch-chain too, along wi’ the gold cross wot he allus wears there, an’ which folks sez was the last thing wore by ’is dead sister!  Somethin’s gone wrong with ‘im-somethin’ must a’ gone wrong!  Ginerally speakin’ a ’oley bit means a woman in it—­but ‘tain’t that way wi’ Passon for sure—­there’s a deeper ’ole than the ’ole in the threepenny—­a ’ole wot ain’t got no bottom to it, so fur as I can see.  I’m just fair ’mazed with that ‘ole!—­’mazed an’ moithered altogether, blest if I ain’t!”

The Reverend John, meanwhile, seated under his canopy of apple-blossoms, had succeeded in attaching the ‘’oley bit’ to his chain in such a manner that it should not come unduly into notice with the mere action of pulling out his watch.  He could not, for the life of him, have explained, had he been asked, the reason why he had determined to thus privately wear it on his own person.  To himself he said he ‘fancied’ it.  And why should not parsons have ‘fancies’ like other people?  Why should they not wear ‘’oley bits’ if they liked?  No objection, either moral, legal or religious could surely be raised to such a course of procedure!