Bartley filled a pail with water from the brook, and then carried it home. His mother was in church; his Aunt, Susan Saunders, prepared dinner. The man now completed his costume, put on a collar and a red tie, donned his coat and a soft felt "wide-awake" hat. He then went into the churchyard, sat upon a tomb exactly in front of the principal door and there waited, without self-consciousness, for the congregation to emerge. Anon the people came--a stream of old men and maidens, women and children. Ancient beavers shone in the sun, plaid shawls covered aged shoulders; there was greeting and clatter of tongues in the vernacular; the young creatures, released from their futile imprisonment, ran hither and thither, and whooped and shouted--without apparent merriment, but simply in obedience to a natural call for swift movement of growing legs and arms and full inflation of lungs. The lively company streamed away and Bartley gave fifty of the folk "good-morning." Some chid him for not attending the service. At last there came his mother. She resembled her son but little, and looked younger than her years. Nanny Crocker was more black than grey. She had dark brown eyes, a high-coloured face, a full bosom and a square, sturdy body, well moulded to display the enormous pattern of a red, black and blue shawl. Beside her walked Mr. Charles Moses, the vicar’s churchwarden--a married man with a grey beard and crystallised opinions, who on week-days pursued the business of a shoemaker. "Where’s Margaret?" asked young Crocker. But his mother could not answer him. "I thought she’d have found me and prayed along with me, in the pew behind the font, that catches heat from the stove, where I always go winter time," explained Mrs. Crocker. "She never comed, however. Haven’t she arrived home?" "No," said Bartley. "But ’twas a promise to dinner, and since there’s no message, without doubt she’s on the way. I’ll up over Yellowmead and meet her." His mother nodded and went forward, escorted by the shoemaker; people in knots and strings thinned off by this gate and that; then came forth the imposing company of the Bowdens, for Sheepstor was their parish, and wet or fine, hot or cold, they weekly worshipped there. Only on rare occasions, when some fierce blizzard banked white drifts ten feet deep between Ditsworthy and the outer world, did Elias abstain and hold long services in the Warren House kitchen, lighted by the glare of the snow-blink from without. To-day he came first, with his widowed daughter Sophia. Then followed David and Rhoda, Napoleon and Wellington, Samson and Richard, in the order named. Joshua was not present, as he had gone to spend the day with friends; and Dorcas kept at home to help her mother with dinner.