“Gentle-man!  Gentle-sinner, let me say!  Will Satan care whether you be a peasant, or a star-and-garter gentleman?  Tut, tut! in my office I know nothing about gentlemen.  There are plenty of gentlemen with Beelzebub; and they will ring all eternity for a drop of water, and never find a servant to answer them.”

“Sir, though you are a clergyman, you have no right to speak to me in such a manner.”

“Because I am a clergyman, I have the right.  If I see a man sleeping while the Devil rocks his cradle, have I not the right to say to him, ‘Wake up, you are in danger’?  Let me tell you, squire, you have committed more than one sin.  Go home, and confess them to God and man.  Above all, turn down a leaf in your Bible where a fool once asked, ’Who is my neighbor?’ Keep it turned down, until you have answered the question better than you have been doing it lately.”

“None of my neighbors can say wrong of me.  I have always done my duty to them.  I have paid every one what I owe”—­

“Not enough, squire; not enough.  Follow on, as Hosea says, to love them.  Don’t always give them the white, and keep the yolk for yourself.  You know your duty.  Haste you back home, then, and do it.”

“I will not be put off in such a way, sir.  You must interfere in this matter:  make these silly women behave themselves.  I cannot have the whole country-side talking of my affairs.”

“Me interfere!  No, no!  I am not in your livery, squire; and I won’t fight your quarrels.  Sir, my time is engaged.”

“I have a right”—­

“My time is engaged.  It is my hour for reading the Evening Service.  Stay and hear it, if you desire.  But it is a bad neighborhood, where a man can’t say his prayers quietly.”  And he stood up, walked slowly to his reading-desk, and began to turn the leaves of the Book of Common Prayer.

Then Julius went out in a passion, and the rector muttered, “The Devil may quote Scripture, but he does not like to hear it read.  Come, Charlotte, let us thank God, thank him twice, nay, thrice, not alone for the faith of Christ Jesus, but also for the legacy of Christ Jesus.  Oh, child, amid earth’s weary restlessness and noisy quarrels, how rich a legacy,”—­

“‘Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give unto you.’”

CHAPTER XI.

SANDAL AND SANDAL.

     “Time will discover every thing; it is a babbler, and speaks even
     when no question is put.”

     “Run, spindles!  Run, and weave the threads of doom.”

Next morning very early, Stephen had a letter from Charlotte.  He was sitting at breakfast with Ducie when the rector’s boy brought it; and it came, as great events generally come, without any premonition or heralding circumstance.  Ducie was pouring out coffee; and she went on with her employment, thinking, not of the letter Stephen was opening, but of the malt, and of the condition of the brewing-boiler.  An angry exclamation from Stephen made her lift her eyes to his face.  “My word, Stephen, you are put out!  What’s to do?”