A buzz and hubbub, mostly of laughter, ascended when presently Mr. Shorto-Champernowne's parishioners returned to the air; and any chance spectator beholding them had certainly judged he stood before an audience now dismissed from a theatre rather than the congregation of a church. "Glad Will weern't theer, I'm sure," said Mrs. Blanchard. "He'd 'a' laughed out loud an' made bad worse. Chris did as 't was, awnly parson's roarin' luckily drowned it. And Mr. Martin Grimbal, whose eye I catched, was put to it to help smilin'." "Ban't often he laughs, anyway," said Phoebe, who walked homewards with her father and the Blanchards; whereon Chris, from being in a boisterous vein of merriment, grew grave. Together all returned to the valley. Will was due in half an hour from Newtake, and Phoebe, as a special favour, had been permitted to dine at Mrs. Blanchard's cottage with her husband and his family. Clement Hicks had also promised to be of the party; but that was before the trouble of the previous week, and Chris knew he would not come. Meantime, Gaffer Lezzard, supported by two generations of his family, explained his reasons for objecting to Mr. Blee's proposed marriage. "Mrs. Coomstock be engaged, right and reg'lar, to me," he declared. "She'd gived me her word 'fore ever Blee axed her. I seed her essterday, to hear final 'pon the subjec', an' she tawld me straight, bein' sober as you at the time, as 't was _me_ she wanted an' meant for to have. She was excited t' other day an' not mistress of herself ezacally; an' the crafty twoad took advantage of it, an' jawed, an' made her drink an' drink till her didn't knaw what her was sayin' or doin'. But she'm mine, an' she'll tell 'e same as what I do; so theer's an end on 't." "I'll see Mrs. Coomstock," said the Vicar. "I, myself will visit her to-morrow." "Canst punish this man for tryin' to taake her from me?" "Permit yourself no mean desires in the direction of revenge. For the present I decline to say more upon the subject. If it were possible to punish, and I am not prepared to say it is not, it would be for brawling in the house of God. After an experience extending over forty years, I may declare that I never saw any such disreputable and horrifying spectacle." So the Lezzard family withdrew and, on the following day, Mrs. Coomstock passed through most painful experiences.