“Oh, Jacob!” I cried, being horrified at the way in which he tore up the ground, as if his wife was waiting, “the things you say are quite wrong, I am sure, for a man in your position. You are connected with this church almost as much as the clerk is.”
“More, miss, ten times more! He don't do nothing but lounge on the front of his desk, and be too lazy to keep up 'Amen,' while I at my time of life go about, from Absolution to the fifth Lord's prayer, with a stick that makes my rheumatics worse, for the sake of the boys with their pocket full of nuts. When I was a boy there was no nuts, except at the proper time of year, a month or two on from this time of speaking; and we used to crack they in the husk, and make no noise to disturb the congregation; but now it is nuts, nuts, round nuts, flat nuts, nuts with three corners to them--all the year round nuts to crack, and me to find out who did it!”
“But, Mr. Rigg,” I replied, as he stopped, looking hotter in mind than in body, “is it not Mrs. Rigg, your good wife, who sells all the nuts on a Saturday for the boys to crack on a Sunday?”
“My missus do sell some, to be sure; yes, just a few. But not of a Saturday more than any other day.”
“Then surely, Mr. Rigg, you might stop it, by not permitting any sale of nuts except to good boys of high principles. And has it not happened sometimes, Mr. Rigg, that boys have made marks on their nuts, and bought them again at your shop on a Monday? I mean, of course, when your duty has compelled you to empty the pockets of a boy in church.”
Now this was a particle of shamefully small gossip, picked up naturally by my Betsy, but pledged to go no further; and as soon as I had spoken I became a little nervous, having it suddenly brought to my mind that I had promised not even to whisper it; and now I had told it to the man of all men! But Jacob appeared to have been quite deaf, and diligently went on digging. And I said “good-evening,” for the grave was for the morrow; and he let me go nearly to the stile before he stuck his spade into the ground and followed.
“Excoose of my making use,” he said, “of a kind of a personal reference, miss; but you be that pat with your answers, it maketh me believe you must be sharp inside--more than your father, the poor Captain, were, as all them little grass buttons argueth. Now, miss, if I thought you had head-piece enough to keep good counsel and ensue it, maybe I could tell you a thing as would make your hair creep out of them coorous hitch-ups, and your heart a'most bust them there braids of fallallies.”