“There’s babby clooas laid by i’ lavender i’ thoase drawers as hasna seen dayleet sin ar Joe wur a toddler, an’ they’ll just come handy. An’ if bread’s dear an’ meal’s dear, we mun just ate less on it arsels, an’ there’ll be moore fur the choilt. He’ll pay yo back, feyther, aw know, when yo’re too owd to wark.” “An’ aw con do ’bout ’bacca, lass. If the orphan’s granny wur too preawd to ax help o’ th’ parish, aw’ll be too preawd to send her pratty grandchoilt theer.” An so, to Matthew Cooper’s amazement, it was settled. But the extra labour and self-denial it involved on the part of Bess, neither Matthew nor Simon could estimate. In the midst of the rabid scepticism and Republicanism of the period, Simon Clegg was a staunch “Church and King” man, and, as a natural consequence, a stout upholder of their ordinances. Regularly as the bell tolled in for Sunday morning service, he might be seen walking reverently down the aisle of the old church, to his place in the free seats, with his neat, cheerful-looking daughter following him sometimes, but not always—so regularly that the stout beadle missed him from his seat the Sunday after the inundation, and meeting him in the churchyard a week later, sought to learn the why and wherefore. The beadle of the parish church was an important personage in the eyes of Simon Clegg; and, somewhat proud of his notice, the little tanner related the incidents of that memorable flood-week to his querist, concluding with his adoption of the child. The official h’md and ha’d, applauded the act, but shook his powdered head, and added, sagely, that it was a “greeat charge, a varry greeat charge.” “Dun yo’ think th’ little un’s bin babtised?” interrogated the beadle. “Aw conno’ tell; nob’dy couldn’t tell nowt abeawt th’ choilt, ’ut wur ony use to onybody. Bess an’ me han talked it ower, an’ we wur thinkin o’ bringin’ it to be kirsened, to be on th’ safe soide loike. Aw reckon it wouldna do th’ choilt ony harm to be kirsened twoice ower; an’ ’twoud be loike flingin’ th’ choilt’s soul to Owd Scrat gin he wur no kirsened at o’. What dun yo’ thinken’?” The beadle thought pretty much the same as Simon, and it was finally arranged that Simon should present the young foundling for baptism in the course of the week. CHAPTER THE THIRD.[8] HOW THE REV. JOSHUA BROOKES AND SIMON CLEGG INTERPRETED A SHAKESPERIAN TEXT.