wife, and he swears he'll be revenged on the parson—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—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—
" 'O what a happy thing it is,
And joyful for to see,
Brethren to dwell together in
Friendship and unity.'
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;
