“Well, I always did say, that if you once give a priest an inch he’ll take an ell; and I am sorry I forgot it for once.”

Having said this, he shut up his mouth in a manner that indicated plainly enough he would not open it again for some time.  This, more than his speech, irritated me, and with a mere “good morning,” I walked out of the shop.

No sooner was I in the open air than I knew that I too, I as well as poor Thomas Weir, was under a spell; knew that I had gone to him before I had recovered sufficiently from the mingled disappointment and mortification of my interview with Miss Oldcastle; that while I spoke to him I was not speaking with a whole heart; that I had been discharging a duty as if I had been discharging a musket; that, although I had spoken the truth, I had spoken it ungraciously and selfishly.

I could not bear it.  I turned instantly and went back into the shop.

“Thomas, my friend,” I said, holding out my hand, “I beg your pardon.  I was wrong.  I spoke to you as I ought not.  I was troubled in my own mind, and that made me lose my temper and be rude to you, who are far more troubled than I am.  Forgive me!”

He did not take my hand at first, but stared at me as if, not comprehending me, he supposed that I was backing up what I had said last with more of the same sort.  But by the time I had finished he saw what I meant; his countenance altered and looked as if the evil spirit were about to depart from him; he held out his hand, gave mine a great grasp, dropped his head, went on with his work, and said never a word.

I went out of the shop once more, but in a greatly altered mood.

On the way home, I tried to find out how it was that I had that morning failed so signally.  I had little virtue in keeping my temper, because it was naturally very even; therefore I had the more shame in losing it.  I had borne all my uneasiness about Miss Oldcastle without, as far as I knew, transgressing in this fashion till this very morning.  Were great sorrows less hurtful to the temper than small disappointments?  Yes, surely.  But Shakespeare represents Brutus, after hearing of the sudden death of his wife, as losing his temper with Cassius to a degree that bewildered the latter, who said he did not know that Brutus could have been so angry.  Is this consistent with the character of the stately-minded Brutus, or with the dignity of sorrow?  It is.  For the loss of his wife alone would have made him only less irritable; but the whole weight of an army, with its distracting cares and conflicting interests, pressed upon him; and the battle of an empire was to be fought at daybreak, so that he could not be alone with his grief.  Between the silence of death in his mind, and the roar of life in his brain, he became irritable.