Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/24

Rh wife, and he swears he'll be revenged on the parson&mdash;a confounded, methodistical, meddlesome chap, who must be putting his finger in every pie. What was it all about?"

"O, a passill o' nonsense," said Mr Hackit, sticking one thumb between the buttons of his capacious waistcoat, and retaining a pinch of snuff with the other&mdash;for he was but moderately given to "the cups that cheer but not inebriate", and had already finished his tea; "they began to sing the wedding psalm for a new-married couple, as pretty a psalm an' as pretty a tune as any in the prayer-book. It's been sung for every new-married couple since I was a boy. And what can be better?" Here Mr Hackit stretched out his left arm, threw back his head, and broke into melody&mdash;

But Mr Barton is all for th' hymns, and a sort o' music as I can't join in at all."

"And so," said Mr Pilgrim, recalling Mr Hackit from lyrical reminiscences to narrative, "he called out Silence! did he? when he got into the pulpit;