"What think you of that sermon?" said Master Yates to one of his neighbors, as they lingered at the church door for the usual greeting and gossip. "Humph! Call that a sermon!" answered the other. "Why, there was not a bit of Latin in it, and even a plain man like me could understand every word." "Now that was the beauty of it, to my thinking," said Master Yates. "Where is the use of a sermon that nobody understands?" "Yes, those are your new-fangled ways. What is the use of the blessed mass; I am sure nobody understood a word of that?" "A good many folks would like to hear that riddle solved," said a decent man who stood near. Whereat two or three laughed, and old Master Andrews moved away, muttering angrily that it was never a good world since these new notions came into it. A fine thing, indeed, when shepherds and plowmen took on them to think about such matters. For myself, I went home with plenty of subject for thought, and the result of my cogitations was that the next morning I offered to teach Dolly's children to read. She was very thankful for the offer, and I began with them on the criss-cross row that very day. Afterward I set myself a task of music and Latin, and even got out my Greek books, but the last I had to give up, finding myself unequal to the hard work. I soon discovered that my head would not bear much study, so I set myself to learning the mysteries of farm-work. I fed the chickens and the calves, learned to make cheese and butter, and, in turn, taught Dolly and her mother how to make conserves of gooseberries and plums, and other such things as I had learned in the convent. I had the art of distilling—then by no means as common as it has since become—at my finger's ends. Finding that there was a great deal of ague about us, I begged Mistress Curtis to send me a small still, and busied myself in making a certain bitter cordial from cherry bark and herbs, which used to be esteemed a specific in such cases at Dartford. Also, I made cough-mixture and other simple medicines, and carried them myself to the poor sick folks, together with broth and such matters. I have heard say that folks forget their own troubles in those of other people. I did not forget mine, but I certainly found a good deal of the bitterness taken out of them. I believe I have said that there was a certain ruined chapel or cell on Master Yates his farm, which bore no good name, and was indeed reputed to be haunted by evil spirits. Nobody willingly went near it even in broad day, and I don't think the boldest man in the neighborhood would have passed it after dark for any reward you could offer. Indeed Master Yates had strictly forbidden any of his own family to approach the place, saying that there was no knowing what might happen.