the said butler, who whispered when she ought to have been silent,—­and he saw blankness on the fat face of Mrs. Spruce, a face which was tied up like a round red damaged sort of fruit in a black basket-like bonnet, fastened with very broad violet strings.  Now Mrs. Spruce always paid the most pious attention to his sermons, and jogged her husband at regular intervals to prevent that worthy man from dozing, though she knew he could not hear a word of anything that was said, and that, therefore, he might as well have been allowed to sleep,—­but on this occasion John was sure that even he failed to be interested in his observations on that ‘ornament,’ which she called ‘hornament,’ of the meek and quiet spirit, pronounced to be of such ‘great price.’  He realised that if any ‘great price’ was at all in question with her that morning, it was the possible monetary value of her new lady’s wardrobe.  So that on the whole he was very glad when he came to the end of his ramble among strained similes, and was able to retire altogether from the gaze of the different pairs of eyes, cow-like, sheep-like, bird-like, dog-like, and human, which in their faithful watching of his face as he preached, often moved him to a certain embarrassment, though seldom as much as on this occasion.  With his disappearance from the pulpit, and his subsequent retreat round by the back of the churchyard into the privacy of his own garden, the tongues of the gossips, restrained as long as their minister was likely to be within earshot, broke loose and began to wag with glib rapidity.

“Look ’ee ’ere, Tummas,” said one short, thick-set man, addressing Bainton; “Look ’ee ‘ere—­thy measter baint oop to mark this marnin’!  Seemed as if he couldn’t find the ways nor the meanin’s o’ the Lord nohow!”

Bainton slowly removed his cap from his head and looked thoughtfully into the lining, as though seeking for inspiration there, before replying.  The short, thick-set man was an important personage,—­no less than the proprietor of the ‘Mother Huff’ public-house; and not only was he proprietor of the said public-house, but brewer of all the ale he sold there.  Roger Buggins was a man to be reckoned with, and he expected to be treated with almost as much consideration as the ‘Passon’ himself.  Buggins wore a very ill-fitting black suit on Sundays, which made him look like a cross between a waiter and an undertaker; and he also supported on his cranium a very tall top-hat with an extra wide brim, suggesting in its antediluvian shape a former close acquaintance with cast-off clothing stores.

“He baint himself,”—­reiterated Buggins emphatically; “He was fair mazed and dazed with his argifyin’.  ‘Meek and quiet sperrit’!  Who wants the like o’ that in this ’ere mortal wurrld, where we all commences to fight from the moment we lays in our cradles till the last kick we gives ’fore we goes to our graves?  Meek and quiet goes to prison more often than rough and ready!”