And it has always been so that Wodgate has
been governed by a bishop; because as we have no church, we
will have as good. And by this token that this day sen'night,
the day my time was up, he married me to this here young lady.
She is of the Baptist school religion, and wanted us to be
tied by her clergyman, but all the lads that served their time
with me were married by the Bishop, and many a more, and I saw
no call to do no otherwise. So he sprinkled some salt over a
gridiron, read "Our Father" backwards, and wrote our name in a
book: and we were spliced; but I didn't do it rashly, did I,
Suky, by the token that we had kept company for two years, and
there isn't a gal in all Wodgate what handles a file, like
Sue."
"And what is your name, my good fellow?"
"They call me Tummas, but I ayn't got no second name; but now
I am married I mean to take my wife's, for she has been
baptised, and so has got two."
"Yes sir," said the girl with the vacant face and the back
like a grasshopper; "I be a reg'lar born Christian and my
mother afore me, and that's what few gals in the Yard can say.
Thomas will take to it himself when work is slack; and he
believes now in our Lord and Saviour Pontius Pilate who was
crucified to save our sins; and in Moses, Goliath, and the
rest of the Apostles.
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