was going to be, was rather a casual thought occurring whilst they were
inspecting the vicar's shrubbery and grass-plot than a predetermined
thing. The tranter, who, coming frequently to the vicarage with luggage,
coals, firewood, etc., had none of the awe for its precincts that filled
the breasts of most of the others, fixed his eyes firmly on the knocker
during this interval of waiting. The knocker having no characteristic
worthy of notice, he relinquished it for a knot in one of the
door-panels, and studied the winding lines of the grain.

"O, sir, please, here's Tranter Dewy, and old William Dewy, and young
Richard Dewy, O, and all the quire too, sir, except the boys, a-come to
see you!" said Mr. Maybold's maid-servant to Mr. Maybold, the pupils of
her eyes dilating like circles in a pond.

"All the choir?" said the astonished vicar (who may be shortly described
as a good-looking young man with courageous eyes, timid mouth, and
neutral nose), abandoning his writing and looking at his parlour-maid
after speaking, like a man who fancied he had seen her face before but
couldn't recollect where.

"And they looks very firm, and Tranter Dewy do turn neither to the right
hand nor to the left, but stares quite straight and solemn with his mind
made up!"

"O, all the choir," repeated the vicar to himself, trying by that simple
device to trot out his thoughts on what the choir could come for.

"Yes; every man-jack of 'em, as I be alive!" (The parlour-maid was
rather local in manner, having in fact been raised in the same village.)
"Really, sir, 'tis thoughted by many in town and country that--"