“Anyhow ’twas in that very month, just arter the ‘Outrage,’ that one Price—a farmer he called hisself—was livin’ high up yonder among they hills that you can see faint-like in the distance, nigh agin they ricks. A bleak and dreary place it were at the best o’ times, and a job to get at it at all when a strong so’wester were blowin’. And most every November it _do_ blow cruel strong along they high downs, wi’ no cover to speak on’t ’cept scraps of fuz and heather, and a small thorn tree, may be, now and agin, wi’ ’is branches all leanin’ to the nor’-east, as though ’twas an old man a holdin’ out his arms for shelter. And the road to Price’s farm were no better nor a sheep run. A godless man Price were, as you’d expect wi’ a man who lived so far from all we decent folks. And he never com’d nigh no church. Passon, he said, didn’t suit he, and he weren’t a goin’ to trapeze over hill and dale—not he—when chance ’twas he’d find no passon and no service at t’other end. And if passon went to he—as he did now and agin—he’d find the door shut in his face. And for vittles—not a bite nor a sup of anything did he offer ’en, though passon was a rare ’un at that kind of work. Sunday after Sunday he’d look in reg’lar nigh about dinner time, and savour by his nose, he would, where there was a chance for ’en of summat enticin’. Not but what ’twere bad for the childer where he _did_ settle hisself, for ’twas little of the pudden was left for they when he’d a’ had his turn on’t. “Howsomever, ’twas there Price lived, wi’ hisself for his company. So no wonder strange tales got abroad about ’m. ’Twas said, though Joseph never gived no heed to ’t, that three wives had entered his doors, and never one of ’em had come out agin—no, not for buryin’. And Joseph must have known on’t if so be they had, seein’ he were clerk and sexton and grave-digger, let alone the head o’ the choir. ’Twas thought that he’d buried ’em in another parish, more nigher to the house he lived in, and wi’ a better road ’long which to carry ’em. But, Lord save us! tweren’t nothin’ of the kind. “One morning, early in December, ’twas nine o’ the clock, may be, or thereabouts—for Joseph had just been out to pen the sheep in the church-yard—a tall fine old genelman called at the door, and he knowed by his dress ’twere the Bishop. Not that he’d cast eyes on ’en before, for our youngsters are confirmed a way off; there baint enough of them to claim a Bishop for theirselves. But he knowed ’twere the Bishop, what wi’ his gaiters, fittin’ as though they’d grow’d to his legs, and his broad hat as shiny as if you’d smoothed it wi’ a flat iron.