“He can’t be King o’ England,” said Mrs. Matthews, “neither me nor Miss Augustine thinks of anything of the kind. It’s awful to see such ignorance o’ spiritual meanings. What’s the Bible but spiritual meanings? You don’t take the blessed Word right off according to what it says.”
“That’s the difference between you and me,” said old Sarah, boldly. “I does; and I hope I practise my Bible, instead of turning of it off into any kind of meanings. I’ve always heard as that was one of the differences atween Methodies and good steady Church folks.”
“Husht, husht, here’s the doctor a-coming,” said old Mrs. Tolladay, who kept the peace between the parties, but liked to tell the story of their conflicts afterward to any understanding ear. “I dunno much about how Mr. Herbert, poor lad, could be the King myself,” she said to the vicar, who was one of her frequent auditors, and who dearly liked a joke about the almshouses, which were a kind of _imperium in imperio_, a separate principality within his natural dominions; “but Miss Augustine warn’t meaning that. If she’s queer, she ain’t a rebel nor nothing o’ that sort, but says her prayers for the Queen regular, like the rest of us. As for meanings, Tolladay says to me, we’ve no call to go searching for meanings like them two, but just to do what we’re told, as is the whole duty of man, me and Tolladay says. As for them two, they’re as good as a play. ‘King David was ’im as had all his desires granted ’im, and long life and help out o’ Zion,’ said Mrs. Matthews. ‘And a nice person he was to have all his wants,’ says old Sarah. I’d ha’ shut my door pretty fast in the man’s face, if he’d come here asking help, I can tell you. Call him a king if you please, but I calls him no better nor the rest--a peepin’ and a spyin’--’”
“What did she mean by that?” asked the vicar, amused, but wondering.
“’Cause of the woman as was a-washing of herself, sir,” said Mrs. Tolladay, modestly looking down. “Sarah can’t abide him for that; but I says as maybe it was a strange sight so long agone. Folks wasn’t so thoughtful of washings and so forth in old times. When I was in service myself, which is a good bit since, there wasn’t near the fuss about baths as there is nowadays, not even among the gentlefolks. Says Mrs. Matthews, ‘He was a man after God’s own heart, he was.’ ‘I ain’t a-goin’ to find fault with my Maker, it ain’t my place,’ says Sarah; ‘but I don’t approve o’ his taste.’ And that’s as true as I stand here. She’s a bold woman, is old Sarah. There’s many as might think it, but few as would say it. Anyhow, I can’t get it out o’ my mind as it was somehow Mr. Herbert as we was a chanting of, and never King David. Poor man, he’s dead this years and years,” said Mrs. Tolladay, “and you know, as well as me, sir, that there are no devices nor labors found, nor wisdom, as the hymn says, underneath the ground.”