Puddletown is our next halt on the road. It is a considerable village whose church has a chapel full of ancient monuments to the Martins of Athelhampton. Canon Carter held the living here in 1838, and when he first arrived the news that he neither shot, hunted nor fished disturbed the rustic flock, and they openly expressed their contempt for him. Then he replaced the village church band with a harmonium, and the story gained so much bulk and robustity in travelling, as such stories do in the country, that I have no doubt he seemed a sort of devastating monster. After this he did a most appalling thing: he tampered with a very ancient rectorial gift of a mince-pie, a loaf of bread and a quart of old ale to every individual in the parish, not even excluding the babies in arms, and ventured to assert that the funds would be better employed in forming a clothing club for the poor. Carter was a very worthy man, but somehow I cannot forgive him for this. He should have placed himself a little nearer to the full current of natural things. In the essence the ancient gift was "clothing"--solid and straightforward. It was surely in this spirit that Bishop John Still penned his famous drinking song: "No frost nor snow, no wind, I trow, Can hurt me if I would, I am so wrapt and throughly lapt Of jolly good ale and old." So at the next tithe-day supper at the Rectory a farmer who had in him the Dorset heart and blood, a very demi-god amongst the poor of Puddletown, arose in his place and asked the good Canon Carter if he still held to his purpose of converting the Christmas ale into nether garments for little boys, and the Canon replied to the effect that it was his intention to carry out that reform. Then the farmer, full of the West, who had not come to talk balderdash, shouted: "I ban't agwaine tu see the poor folk put upon. I'll be blamed ef I du." His voice was very strong and echoed in the rafters in an alarming way, for he was of the breed that said "good-morning" to a friend three fields away without much effort. At this point certain stuffy people folded their hands, and called out "Fie!" and "Shame!" for it was their purpose to curry favour with the vicar, they having many small children in need of nether garments.