decidedly have been taken for an animated lamp-post by any stranger who
happened to come that way. He was applying himself this morning, first to
the nailing of sundry choice fruit-trees against the wall that ran down
one side of his garden--a wall that had been built by the clerk himself
in happier days; and next, to plucking some green walnuts for his wife to
pickle. As he stood on tip-toe, his long thin body and long thin arms
stretched up to the walnut-tree, he might have made the fortune of any
travelling caravan that could have hired him. The few people who passed
him greeted him with a "Good morning," but he rarely turned his head in
answering them. Clerk Gum had grown somewhat taciturn of late years.

The time went on. The clock struck a quarter-past seven, and Jabez Gum,
as he heard it, left the walnut-tree, walked to the gate, and leaned over
it; his face turned in the direction of the village. It was not the
wooden gate generally attached to smaller houses in rustic localities,
but a very pretty iron one; everything about the clerk's house being
of a superior order. Apparently, he was looking out for some one in
displeasure; and, indeed, he had not stood there a minute, when a girl
came flying down the road, and pushed the gate and the clerk back
together.

Mr. Gum directed her attention to the church clock. "Do you see the time,
Rebecca Jones?"

Had the pages of the church-register been visible as well as the clock,
Miss Rebecca Jones's age might have been seen to be fifteen; but, in
knowledge of the world and in impudence, she was considerably older.

"Just gone seven and a quarter," answered she, making a feint of shading
her eyes with her hands, though the sun was behind her.