"What could be done to him if they did lay hold on him?" asked Reuben Shillabeer. "Why, there you beat me," answered Moses. "I’m sure I don’t know. The lord of the manor might talk to him; but I don’t think any law has been broken, whereas ’tis certain many people have been made to think about religion in consequence." "My mother for one," asserted Mr. Snell. "She came across ’_After death the Judgment_’ ’pon a broken paling out Yennadon Down way, and it turned her faint on the instant and made her very unwell. But ’twas all to the good, as she herself declared two days afterwards. The man’s doing a very proper work, whoever the man is." "With a pot of blacking and letters cut out of tin he does it," said Bartley Crocker. "It ought to be pretty easy to find him out. He must have been round here only a day or two ago. I see he’s been busy at the bottom of your paddock, ’Dumpling.’" "Yes," admitted Mr. Shillabeer. "He knows a bit about everybody. ’_Swear not at all_’ he put up on my fence, down the bottom end of my cabbage plot. That ought to be a lesson to us in this bar, for, try as I will, the crooked words slip out among you." "I quite agree," said Mr. Snell. "I catched myself saying ’damn’ to a young dog only yesternight. And no fault of the dog." "If we was all as careful as you, no great harm would come to the parish," answered Charles Moses. "For my part, swearing never drew me. I found I could be righteously angry without it, and also forcible of speech." "Some fall back upon it as natural as drink," asserted Bartley, "though ’tis certainly no sign of strength to put in swear words." "Yet Sir Guy Flamank, his honourable self, be a great hand with them," argued Snell. "I’ve heard him in the hunting field use the most terrible parts of speech you can imagine--though not when ladies was out, I admit that." "Take my good friend, David Bowden," said Bartley. "No man ever yet heard him use an oath. And yet, by all accounts, nobody gets his way quicker with smooth words." Mr. Shillabeer nodded. "Without a shade of unkindly feeling against the man, I could wish he wasn’t quite so own-self, all the same," he said. "That wrapped up heart and soul in work and money-making, that he haven’t eyes for anything else in the earth." Mr. Crocker looked round about him. "What you say is gospel truth, ’Dumpling.’ We’re all friends here, I believe--friends to ’em both. Therefore none will think it anything but kindness in us to be sorry about ’em." "I met Margaret a while back," said Mr. Shillabeer. "My wife was terrible fond of her when she was a mere strip of a girl. We had some talk together, and--there ’twas. I’d give my whiskers to make ’em go along a thought happier; and yet when you say the word, she’ll have nought of it and tell you there never was a happier, luckier creature." "In a way that’s true," declared Bartley, "but in another way ’tis false. What did you say to her, Reuben?"