CLERICAL ANECDOTES. 263 



says the sexton, " I tould mcaster 'twere wrong, for it 

 were taters last year, and taters the year afore, and it 

 ought to have bin wheat this year." 



Another archidiaconal story, from Suffolk. The 

 Archdeacon, when visiting a certain parish, asked the 

 parish clerk what sort of man the rector was ; the 

 clerk, looking hard at the lectern with the eagle and 

 out-stretched wings, and at the same time pointing 

 to the pulpit, replied, " Well, sir, he ain't much in the 

 tub, but he's stunning behind the goose," or "geuse" 

 as the Suffolk vernacular has it. Country folk are 

 seldom lacking in the quality of a certain dry humour. 

 In the neighbourhood of Tring, on the Chiltern 

 Hills, lived one of those small farmers who had 

 been apparently very successful in life, and had the 

 reputation of being a moneyed man, but who had 

 gained his cash in a very doubtful manner, and his 

 neighbours did not hesitate to discuss that manner. 

 One day this farmer was enjoying his pipe over a 

 pint of ale in a village public. To him a rather 

 plain, eccentric character, rejoicing in the sobriquet of 

 Bunker — " I say, Master David, I took your part t'other 

 day ; I stood up for you, I did." " Did you. Bunker ? " 

 said David. " That was very kind of you. How did 

 you take my part ^ " To him again, Bunker — 

 " Well, I was having a pipe with a man near St. 

 Albans, who said he knowed a man who had seed a 

 man as had stole more sheep than you had ; and I said 

 he was a liar." It may be well imagined that David 

 went home a sadder, if not a wiser man, determined not 

 again to invite the confidences of Bunker. 



