"Be it a funeral?"
"You are charged with trading, or attempting to trade, on the
Sabbath; and sad hearing this will be for your old parents, John
Polkinghorne."
John Polkinghorne scratched his head. "You ben't going to tell me
that this be Sunday!" (You see, the poor fellow, living so far in
the country, had somehow miscounted the week, and ridden in to market
a day late.)
"Sunday?" cried the Mayor. "Look at my Bible, there, 'pon the table!
Look at my clean bandanna!"--this was his handkerchief, that he had
been wearing over his face while he dozed, to keep off the flies.
"Good Lord! And me all this morning in the homefield scoading dung!"
"You go home this instant, and take every bit of that dung off again
before sunset," commanded the Mayor, "and if the Lord says no more
about it, we'll overlook the case."
Maybe you have never heard either of his famous examination of Sarah
Mennear, of the "Three Pilchards" Inn (commonly known as the "Kettle
of Fish "), who applied for a separation, alleging that her husband
had kissed her by mistake for another woman.
"What other woman?" demanded his Worship.
"Sorra wan o' me knows," answered Sarah, who came of Irish
extraction.
Her tale went that the previous evening, a little after twilight, she
was walking up the street and had gone by the door of the "Ship" Inn,
when a man staggered out into the roadway and followed her.
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