turned out a good soldier; and so, in his old days, was an indoor
pensioner, and very comfortable; and he said that he had, to be
sure, spent his youth in the devil's service, and his manhood in the
king's, but his old age was given to that of his Maker, which I was
blithe and thankful to hear; and he enquired about many a one in the
parish, the blooming and the green of his time, but they were all
dead and buried; and he had a contrite and penitent spirit, and read
his Bible every day, delighting most in the Book of Joshua, the
Chronicles, and the Kings.

Before this year, the drinking of tea was little known in the
parish, saving among a few of the heritors' houses on a Sabbath
evening; but now it became very rife: yet the commoner sort did not
like to let it be known that they were taking to the new luxury,
especially the elderly women, who, for that reason, had their ploys
in out-houses and by-places, just as the witches lang syne had their
sinful possets and galravitchings; and they made their tea for
common in the pint-stoup, and drank it out of caps and luggies, for
there were but few among them that had cups and saucers. Well do I
remember one night in harvest, in this very year, as I was taking my
twilight dauner aneath the hedge along the back side of Thomas
Thorl's yard, meditating on the goodness of Providence, and looking
at the sheaves of victual on the field, that I heard his wife, and
two three other carlins, with their Bohea in the inside of the
hedge, and no doubt but it had a lacing of the conek, {3} for they
were all cracking like pen-guns. But I gave them a sign, by a loud
host, that Providence sees all, and it skailed the bike; for I heard
them, like guilty creatures, whispering, and gathering up their
truck-pots and trenchers, and cowering away home.