with your story. I am listening," and in went the head again.
Mehalah lost heart. She could not begin thus.
"Pah! how I sweat," exclaimed the parson, again emerging. "The sun beats down on my back, and the black waistcoat draws the heat. And we are in November. This won't last. Have you your potatoes in. Glory?"
"We have only a few on the Ray."
"You ought to have more. Potatoes like a light soil well drained. You have gravel, and with some good cow-dung or sheep-manure, which is better still, with your fall, they ought to do primely. I'll give you seed. It is all nonsense, as they do here, planting small whole potatoes. Take a good strong tuber, and cut it up with an eye in each piece; then you get a better plant than if you keep the little half-grown potatoes for seed. However, I'm wasting time. I'll be back in a moment. I must fetch another basket load. Go on with your story all the same: I can hear you. I shall only be in the shed behind the Rectory."
Parson Tyll was a curate of one parish across the Strood and of the two on the island. The rector was non-resident, on the plea of the unsalubrity of the spot. He had held the rectory of one parish and the vicarage of the other thirty years, and during that period had visited his cures twice, once to read himself in, and on the other occasion to exact some tithes denied him.
"All right," said Mr. Tyll, returning from the back premises, staggering under a crate full of roots. "Go on, I am listening. Pick up those kidneys which have rolled out. Curse it, I hate their falling and getting bruised; they won't keep. There now, you never saw finer potatoes in your life than these. My soil here is the same as yours on the Ray. Don't plant too close, and not in ridges. I'll tell you what I do. I put mine in five feet apart and make heaps round each. I don't hold by ridges. Hillocks is my doctrine. Go on, I am listening. Here, lend me a hand, and chuck me in the potatoes as I want them. You can talk all the same."
Parson Tyll crept into his heap and seated himself on his haunches. "Chuck away, but not too roughly. They
