THE COUNTRY SUNDAY. 69 
money while they sighed over the slow plough. They 
must have everything perfect, else they could do 
nothing ; he could do much with very imperfect 
materials. He would make a cucumber frame out of 
a church window, or a church window out of a cucumber 
frame. One of the residents on the new building estate 
found his cupboard doors numbered on the panels two, 
six, eight, in gilt figures inside, and in fact they were 
made of pew doors which the contractor had got out of 
some old church he had ransacked and turned topsy- 
turvy to the order of the vicar. He would have run up 
a new Salt Lake City cheap, or built a new Rome at five 
per cent. in a few days. 
Meantime, at the little village, various incidents 
occurred ; the sternly virtuous cottagers, for one thing, 
had collected from their scattered homes and held a 
‘Horn Fair. Some erring barmaid at the inn, accused 
of too lavish a use of smiles, too much kindness—most 
likely a jealous tale only—aroused their righteous ire. 
With shawm and timbrel and ram’s-horn trumpet— 
z¢. with cow’s horns, poker and tongs, and tea-trays— 
the indignant and high-toned population collected night 
after night by the tavern, and made such fearful uproar 
that the poor girl, really quite innocent, had to leave her 
situation. Nothing could be more charitable, more truly 
righteous, after the model of the Man who would not 
even so much as say a harsh word to the woman taken 
in adultery. One poor man shut up his house and went 
away with his wife and family, and not being heard of 
for a little while these backbiters told each other that he 
had not paid his rent, that his furniture was only on loan, 
and not a single instalment had been met; he owed the 
butcher half a crown, the baker discovered there was one 
and twopence on his book, the tavern could show a score, 
