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"The violets are doing wonderfully well this year, Bainton," he presently said, with his old kind smile, addressing his gardener "I am taking these to Miss Vancourt this afternoon." Bainton lifted his cap respectfully. "God bless her!" he said, "An' you too, Passon!" And John, holding the fragrant bunch of small sweet flowers tenderly in his hand, answered gently "Thank you, my friend!
"Look 'ere, Tummas," rejoined the verger, speaking slowly and emphatically "Passon, 'e be a rare good man, m'appen no better man anywheres, an' what he's goin' to say to us this blessed Sunday is all settled-like. He's been thinkin' it out all the week. He knows what's what.
Spruce," he began, then hesitated, as she turned briskly towards him, looking like a human clothes-prop, with both fat arms extended in order to keep well away from contact with the floor a gauzy robe sparkling all over with tiny crystalline drops, which, catching the sunbeams, flashed like little points of flame. "Beggin' your pardon, Passon, did you speak?" "Yes.
'Ay, Sir, said old Tripp, 'parties do be saying as how it is a mortial pity to see such a church go to wrack; and I do believe the Squire wouldn't be so hard to move if it warn't for the Passon that's young Mr. Fulbert, the vicar. 'I don't understand all these rectors and vicars, said Lance. 'I thought they never hung out together.
Willyum. Zo it du be. Here du be goings-on! What will t' passon say? Zay, bor, don't 'ee zee a zort o' loikeness atween t' maid and t' Squire? Willyum. Jarge, if you bain't right, lad. Happen she do have t' same nose! Fitzhugh. Ah, my men! I'm your new Squire. Do you know who this is? Willyum. Why, her du be our Rachel. Fitzhugh.
"An' that they're past findin' out, no sensible person will contradict, for why Miss Maryllia should be laid on 'er back an' me left to stan' upright is a mystery Gospel itself can't clear! An' if I could onny see Passon Walden, I'd ask 'im what it all means, for if anybody knows it he will, but he won't see no one, an' Dr.
"I suppose y'are alludin' to the F.R.H.'s, Passon," he said; "They all loves Latin, as cats loves milk; howsomever, they never knows 'ow to pronounce it. Likewhich myself not bein' a F.R.H. nor likely to be, I'm bound to confess I dabbles in it a bit, though there's a chap wot I gets cheap shrubs of, his Latin's worse nor mine, an' 'e's got all the three letters after 'is name. 'Ow did 'e get 'em?
'They two dogs, they be summat like a couple o' wild b'ys; they keeps the passon and the mistress in, not for to say hot water, but bilin' water, for the livelong day! constantly declared Binks, who was the handy-man at the Vicarage, and, in fact, handy-man at the little church as well, he being both factotum and sexton.
'Well, sir, it was like this, you see. My wife, she's north-country, she is, comes from Yorkshire; sometimes she'd used to say to me, "Passon 'ee ain't much good, and passon 'ee ain't much harm. 'Ee's no more good nor more 'arm, so fer as I can see, nor a chip in a basin o' parritch."
Ah yes! and with this, there were sundry shakings of the head and shruggings of the shoulders which implied more than whole volumes of libel. But while the county talked, the village listened, sagaciously incredulous of mere rumour, quiescent in itself and perfectly satisfied that whoever else was wrong, 'Passon Walden' in everything he did, said, or thought, was sure to be right.
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