“I have heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light and wisdom and excellent understanding are found in thee.—­Be seated, Mr. Lashmar, be seated.  Friend Breakspeare, put your toes on the fender.  Mr. Lashmar, my drink is ale; an honest tap which I have drunk for some three score years, and which never did me harm.  Will you join me?”

“With pleasure, Mr. Blaydes.”

A touch upon the bell summoned the serving woman.

“Mrs. Ricketts, another jug of the right amber, and two beakers.  I know not if you smoke, Mr. Lashmar?—­Why, that’s right.  Two yards of Broseley also, Mrs. Ricketts.”

Breakspeare had produced his pouch, which he opened and held to Martin.

“Here’s a new mixture, my own blending, which I should like you to try.  I see your pipe is empty.”

“Gramercy,” replied the other, with a wave of the hand.  “I stick to my own mundungus; any novelty disturbs my thoughts.  Offer it to Mr. Lashmar, who might find this weed of mine a trifle rank.—­Here comes the jug.  What say you to that for a head, Mr. Lashmar?  A new nine-gallon, tapped before breakfast this morning, now running clear and cool as a mountain burn.  What would life be without this?  Elsewhere our ale degenerates; not many honest brewers are left.  Druggist’s wine and the fire of the distilleries will wreck our people.  Whenever you have a chance, Mr. Lashmar, speak a word for honest ale.  Time enough is wasted at Westminster; they may well listen to a plea for the source of all right-feeling and right-thinking—­amber ale.”

Dyce soon understood that here, at all events, he was not called upon for eloquence, or disquisition.  Martin Blaydes had become rather dull of car, and found it convenient to do most of the talking himself.  Now and then he turned his sneeze-menacing smile this way or that, and a remark always claimed his courteous attention, but in general his eyes were fixed on the glow of the fireplace, ’whilst he pursued a humorous ramble from thought to thought, topic to topic.  Evidently of local politics he knew nothing and recked not at all; he seemed to take for granted that Lashmar was about to sit in Parliament for Hollingford, and that the young man represented lofty principles rarely combined with public ambition.

“You may do something; I don’t know, I don’t know.  Things are bad, I fear, and likely to be worse.  We had hopes, Mr. Lashmar, when the world and I were young.  In those days there was such a thing as zeal for progress and progress didn’t necessarily mean money.  You know my view of the matter, friend Breakspeare.  Two causes explain the pass we’ve come to—­the power of women and the tyranny of finance.  How does that touch you, Mr. Lashmar?”

“Finance yes,” Dyce replied.  “It’s the curse of the modern world.  But women?”