"Ay, ay. Parsons in them days warn't above a bit of farming. I warn't much more than a scrap of a boy, but I remember him. He wore a wig, and old black gaiters; and knew as well what was his'n and what wasn't as any parson in Wiltshire. Tithes was tithes then; and parson was cute enough in taking on 'em." "But these sheep of his were his own, I suppose?" "Whose else would they be, sir?" "And did he fence them in on that bit of ground?" "There'd be a boy with 'em, I'm thinking, sir. There wasn't so much fencing of sheep then as there be now. Boys was cheaper in them days." "Just so; and the parson wouldn't allow other sheep there?" "Muster Smallbones mostly took all he could get, sir." "Exactly. The parsons generally did, I believe. It was the way in which they followed most accurately the excellent examples set them by the bishops. But, Mr. Brattle, it wasn't in the way of tithes that he had this grass for his sheep?" "I can't say how he had it, nor yet how Muster Fenwick has the meadows t'other side of the river, which he lets to farmer Pierce; but he do have 'em, and farmer Pierce do pay him the rent." "Glebe land, you know," said Mr. Quickenham. "That's what they calls it," said the miller. "And none of the vicars that came after old Smallbones have ever done anything with that bit of ground?" "Ne'er a one on'em. Mr. Brandon, as I tell 'ee, never come nigh the place. I don't know as ever I see'd him. It was him as they made bishop afterwards, some'eres away in Ireland. He had a lord to his uncle. Then Muster Threepaway, he was here ever so long." "But he didn't mind such things." "He never owned no sheep; and the old 'oomen's cows was let to go on the land, as was best, and then the boys took to playing hopskotch there, with a horse or two over it at times, and now Mr. Puddleham has it for his preaching. Maybe, sir, the lawyers might have a turn at it yet;" and the miller laughed at his own wit. "And get more out of it than any former occupant," said Mr. Quickenham, who would indeed have been very loth to allow his wife's brother-in-law to go into a law suit, but still felt that a very pretty piece of litigation was about to be thrown away in this matter of Mr. Puddleham's chapel.