Accordingly, having seen that the coast was clear--for they considered their parents (as the children of the hard-working often do) the natural foes to amusement--they carried the monster into an old outhouse, and ran to the veteran to beg him to come up slyly and inspect its properties.
Three months after this memorable event, arrived the new pastor--a slim, prim, orderly, and starch young man, framed by nature and trained by practice to bear a great deal of solitude and starving.

Two loving couples had waited to be married till his Reverence should arrive.
The ceremony performed, where was the registry-book?
The vestry was searched-the church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the demise of his deaf predecessor, had come into office a little before Caleb's last illness, had a dim recollection of having taken the registry up to Mr.Price at the time the vestry-room was whitewashed.
The house was searched-the cupboard, the mysterious cupboard, was explored.

"Here it is, sir!" cried the clerk; and he pounced upon a pale parchment volume.

The thin clergyman opened it, and recoiled in dismay--more than three-fourths of the leaves had been torn out.
"It is the moths, sir," said the gardener's wife, who had not yet removed from the house.
The clergyman looked round; one of the children was trembling.

"What have you done to this book, little one ?" "That book ?--the--hi!--hi!--" "Speak the truth, and you sha'n't be punished." "I did not know it was any harm--hi!--hi!--" "Well, and--" "And old Ben helped us." "Well ?" "And--and--and--hi!--hi!--The tail of the kite, sir!--" "Where is the kite ?" Alas! the kite and its tail were long ago gone to that undiscovered limbo where all things lost, broken, vanished, and destroyed; things that lose themselves--for servants are too honest to steal; things that break themselves--for servants are too careful to break; find an everlasting and impenetrable refuge.
"It does not signify a pin's head," said the clerk; "the parish must find a new 'un!" "It is no fault of mine," said the Pastor.