He woke up the next morning with the solution of dodging the mention of the day and merely relieving Jinny of the duty of “markiting” for them. He felt sure that this word could be found, remembering a text about two sparrows being sold for a farthing. But to his chagrin it was not in the “markit” that they were sold. In steeplechasing for the word, he tumbled on a text in Hosea: “Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah,” and that seemed like an omen. Yes, he _would_ blow it in Bradmarsh, if not in Ramah. Let him wait till she came with the horn; then after whelming her with the wonder of his execution, he could, face to face and free of orthography, bid her trouble Frog Farm no more. And the postscript of his great letter, “Let not your horn be exalted, nor speak with a stiff neck,” rang through his mind again, like a prophetic warning against overweening damsels.
“He’s come back a new soul,” Martha reported to Caleb, with shining eyes. “He’s found God.”
Caleb shook his head sceptically. “He’s too boxed up for that—he don’t open his heart enough.”
“But he opens the Bible,” urged Martha, “and he won’t close it even for meals. I can never get it for myself nowadays.”
“Dedn’t you read me as the Devil can spout Scripture?” said Caleb shrewdly.
“For shame, Caleb. Anybody can see how changed the boy is—the only thing that makes me anxious is his Sabbatarian leanings. Suppose he should go and join the Seventh-Day Baptists.”
“No, no—’tis those that keep Sunday on Saturday. There’s two in Long Bradmarsh, but I hope Will won’t go straying into strange paths.”
“You better enlighten him,” said Caleb. “Them as is powerful enough to carry boxes from Chipstone ain’t allus bright in the brain-pan. Oi count it ’ud be aukard if he fared to keep Sunday on Saturday, bein’ as he’d want the Sunday dishes fust and we’d get ’em cold.”
“There’s higher considerations than the stomach,” said Martha severely.
“The stomach ain’t low and it ain’t high,” maintained Caleb. “The Lord put the stomach in the middle so as we shouldn’t neither worship it nor forgit it.”
“The only Sunday meal that matters,” persisted Martha, “is the bread and the wine, and though there’s no Lord’s table nigh, such as I could find dozens of in London, nor nobody to worship with except you, yet if you go on scoffing, my duty to my Brethren and Sisters of the synagogue will be to withdraw from you.”