But the partic'larest thing of all is, as
nobody took any notice on it but me, and they answered straight off
"yes", like as if it had been me saying "Amen" i' the right place,
without listening to what went before.'
'But you knew what was going on well enough, didn't you, Mr
Macey? You were live enough, eh?' said the butcher.
'Lor bless you!' said Mr Macey, pausing, and smiling in pity at the
impotence of his hearers' imagination- 'why, I was all of a tremble:
it was as if I'd been a coat pulled by the two tails, like; for I
couldn't stop the parson, I couldn't take upon me to do that; and
yet I said to myself, I says, "Suppose they shouldn't be fast married,
'cause the words are contrairy?" and my head went working like a mill,
for I was allays uncommon for turning things over and seeing all round
'em; and I says to myself, "Is't the meanin' or the words as makes
folks fast i' wedlock?" For the parson meant right, and the bride
and bridegroom meant right. But then, when I come to think on it,
meanin' goes but a little way i' most things, for you may mean to
stick things together and your glue may be bad, and then where are
you? And so I says to mysen, "It isn't the meanin', it's the glue."
And I was worreted as if I'd got three bells to pull at once, when
we got into the vestry, and they begun to sign their names. But
where's the use o' talking?- you can't think what goes on in a 'cute
man's inside.
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