“What an early spring!” he thought to himself. “’Tis but the 21 st of April and here’s apple blossom! And there are the poplars at Bosbury already green, and the old tower which Hilary asked me about all those years ago. Well! ’tis a mercy we can’t see in life what lies before us. And to point the moral of that reflection here comes Peter Waghorn, like a blot on the fair picture.” “Good-day, sir, good-day!” said the wood-carver, his dark face lighted by a gleam of triumph. “I thank the Lord you have come. My prayers have been heard, and we shall accomplish His work!” CHAPTER XXXV. “_The real test of a man is not what he knows but what he is in himself, and in his relation to others. For instance, can he battle against his own bad inherited instincts, or brave public opinion in the cause of truth?_” --Tennyson. On this bright, mild Tuesday morning, Mrs. Durdle was bustling about in the sitting-room at the Vicarage, armed with a goose-wing and a duster, weapons wherewith she waged a daily battle with the dust. Spite of her unwieldy proportions, she was a most active person, but even the energetic are not sorry to pause a little in their work on a balmy spring day, and when Zachary crossed the little lawn and approached the open casement, she willingly went to the window, nominally to shake her duster, but in reality to enjoy a gossip. “Mornin’, Mrs. Durdle!” said Zachary. “A fine growin’ day this!” Zachary was somewhat bent and old, yet his face, though wrinkled, had still a youthful ruddiness, and bore that benevolent expression which comes when the grinders cease because they are few, and the lips take an infantine and gentle smile as a recompense. “Well, for me, I say, ’tis a day when workin’ is none so easy,” said Durdle. “Folk talk a deal about the peace and quiet of a country life, but I had a heap more quiet at Hereford before I came to keep house for the Vicar. Look you there!” and she pointed with fine scorn to an untidy table, “he’s been and got out them nasty bones again! If they wasn’t as dry as an empty cider-press I’d give them all to the dog!” With laugh Zachary suddenly held up and brandished in the air a long bone which he had hitherto concealed. Mrs. Dundle gave a horrified exclamation. “My patience, man! Don’t bring that here! Vicar would never take bones from the churchyard. ’Tis animals’ bones he’s all agog for, and then only when they be as old as Noah’s ark.” “I’ll put it back in the mould when parson’s seen it; but I tell you, Mrs. Durdle, ’tis a marvel. _That’s_ a giant’s shank bone, and he must ha’ stood nine feet high--poor chap, think o’ that! I’m glad there’s not so much o’ me. Think o’ nine feet o’ rheumatics!”