The Buck’s eye glittered with bitterness.

“Miss Julia, do you say?” he replied; “why, my good friend, the girl was christened Judy—­plain Judy; but now that they’ve got into high-flown life, you persave, nothing will sarve them but to ape their betthers.  However, never mind, I’ll see the day yet, and that before long, when saucy Judy won’t refuse my assistance.  Time about’s fair play, you know.”

It may be observed here, that Buck English happened to forget himself, which he almost always did whenever he became in earnest:  he also forgot his polite language and peculiar elegance of pronunciation.  To a vain and weak mind there is nothing more cutting than the consciousness of looking mortified in the eyes of others, and under these circumstances to feel that the laugh is against you, adds one not important item to “the miseries of human life.”

The Buck, now that the priest was at the chapel door, walked, with a stride that very much resembled the mock-heroic, towards the place of worship; but, in the opinion of the shrewd spectators, his dignity was sadly tarnished by the humorous contempt implied in the practical jest that had been so adroitly played off at his expense.

CHAPTER II.—­The Proctor’s Principles and His Family.

For a considerable time previous to the scene described in our last chapter, a principle of general resistance to tithes had been deepening in and spreading over the country.  Indeed the opposition to them had, for at least half a century before, risen up in periodical ebullitions that were characterized by much outrage and cruelty.  On this account, then, it was generally necessary that the residence of that unpopular functionary, the tithe-proctor, should be always one of considerable strength, in order the more successfully to resist such midnight attacks as hostile combination might make upon it.  Purcel, as well as other proctors of his day, had from time to time received threatening notices, not only of a personal nature, but also of premeditated attacks upon his house.  The man was, however, not only intrepid and resolute, but cautious and prudent; and whilst he did not suffer himself to be intimidated by threats that for the most part ended in nothing, he took care to keep himself and his family well provided against any attack that might be made upon them.

The history of Matthew Purcel is soon told.  It is that of enterprise, perseverance, and industry, tinged a good deal by a sharp insight into business, a worldly spirit, and although associated with a good deal of pride and display, an uncontrollable love of putting money together, not always under circumstances that were calculated to render him popular, nor which could, in point of feeling or humanity, be at all defended.  He had commenced the world, as has been already intimated, in character of a hardware pedlar.  From stage to stage of that circulating life he advanced until