Dingall, the Treddleston grocer, was
giving for butter, and the reasonable doubts that might be held as to
his solvency, notwithstanding that Mrs. Dingall was a sensible woman,
and they were all sorry for HER, for she had very good kin. Meantime the
men lingered outside, and hardly any of them except the singers, who had
a humming and fragmentary rehearsal to go through, entered the church
until Mr. Irwine was in the desk. They saw no reason for that premature
entrance--what could they do in church if they were there before service
began?--and they did not conceive that any power in the universe
could take it ill of them if they stayed out and talked a little about
"bus'ness."
Chad Cranage looks like quite a new acquaintance to-day, for he has got
his clean Sunday face, which always makes his little granddaughter cry
at him as a stranger. But an experienced eye would have fixed on him at
once as the village blacksmith, after seeing the humble deference with
which the big saucy fellow took off his hat and stroked his hair to the
farmers; for Chad was accustomed to say that a working-man must hold
a candle to a personage understood to be as black as he was himself
on weekdays; by which evil-sounding rule of conduct he meant what was,
after all, rather virtuous than otherwise, namely, that men who had
horses to be shod must be treated with respect.
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