Iss-iss, earnest affair is this. Who gives him his food? We. Who pays
for Vicarage? We. Who feeds his pony? We. His cows? We. Who built his
church? We. With stones carted from our quarries and mortar messed about
with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our fathers."
At the gate of the chapel men discussed Ben's words; and two or three of
them stole away and herded Gwen into the corner of the field; and they
caught her and cut off her tail, and drove a staple into her udder.
Sunday morning eleven men from Capel Dissenters, with iron bands to
their clogs on their feet, and white aprons before their bellies,
shouted without the church: "We are come to pray from the book." The
Parson was affrighted, and left over tolling his bell, and he bolted and
locked the door, against which he set his body as one would set the stub
of a tree.
Running at the top of their speed the railers came to Ben, telling how
the Parson had put them to shame.
"Iobs you are," Ben answered. "The boy bach who loses the key of his
house breaks into his house. Does an old wench bar the dairy to her
mishtress?"
The men returned each to his abode, and an hour after midday they
gathered in the church burial-ground, and they drew up a tombstone, and
with it rammed the door; and they hurled stones at the windows; and in
the darkness they built a wall of dung in the room of the door.
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