mother only the plainest ciphering woman in the world. Warborne
Grammar School--that's where 'twas 'a went to. His father, the
reverent Pa'son St. Cleeve, made a terrible bruckle hit in 's
marrying, in the sight of the high. He were the curate here, my
lady, for a length o' time.'

'Oh, curate,' said Lady Constantine. 'It was before I knew the
village.'

'Ay, long and merry ago! And he married Farmer Martin's daughter--
Giles Martin, a limberish man, who used to go rather bad upon his
lags, if you can mind. I knowed the man well enough; who should
know en better! The maid was a poor windling thing, and, though a
playward piece o' flesh when he married her, 'a socked and sighed,
and went out like a snoff! Yes, my lady. Well, when Pa'son St.
Cleeve married this homespun woman the toppermost folk wouldn't
speak to his wife. Then he dropped a cuss or two, and said he'd no
longer get his living by curing their twopenny souls o' such d---
nonsense as that (excusing my common way), and he took to farming
straightway, and then 'a dropped down dead in a nor'-west
thunderstorm; it being said--hee-hee!--that Master God was in
tantrums wi'en for leaving his service,--hee-hee! I give the story
as I heard it, my lady, but be dazed if I believe in such trumpery
about folks in the sky, nor anything else that's said on 'em, good
or bad. Well, Swithin, the boy, was sent to the grammar school, as
I say for; but what with having two stations of life in his blood
he's good for nothing, my lady. He mopes about--sometimes here, and
sometimes there; nobody troubles about en.'

Lady Constantine thanked her informant, and proceeded onward. To