The February thaw set in early and the March winds began to blow before February was fairly out.

Nat Barker the octogenarian cripple, who had the reputation of being a weather prophet, was understood to have said that the spring was "loike to be forrard t'year," and the minds of the younger inhabitants were considerably relieved.

Not that Nat Barker's prophecies were usually fulfilled; no one ever remembered them at the time when they might have been verified.

But they were always made at the season when people had nothing to do but to talk about them.

Mr.Thomas Reid, the conservative sexton, turned up his nose at them, and said he "wished Nat Barker had to dig a parish depth grave in three hours without a drop of nothin' to wet his pipe with, and if he didden fine that groun' oncommon owdacious Thomas Reid he didden know.
They didden know nothin', sir, them parish cripples." Wherewith the worthy sexton took his way with a battered tin can to get his "fours" at the Feathers.