And here Old Rogers stuck fast—­according to Weir’s story.

“It don’t seem easy to say no how, Old Rogers,” said Weir.

“Well, it ain’t.  So I must just let it go by the run, and hope the parson, who’ll never know, would forgive me if he did.”

“Well, then, what is it?”

“It’s my opinion that that parson o’ ours—­you see, we knows about it, Mr Weir, though we’re not gentlefolks—­leastways, I’m none.”

“Now, what do you mean, Old Rogers?”

“Well, I means this—­as how parson’s in love.  There, that’s paid out.”

“Suppose he was, I don’t see yet what business that is of yours or mine either.”

“Well, I do.  I’d go to Davie Jones for that man.”

A heathenish expression, perhaps; but Weir assured me, with much amusement in his tone, that those were the very words Old Rogers used.  Leaving the expression aside, will the reader think for a moment on the old man’s reasoning?  My condition was his business; for he was ready to die for me!  Ah! love does indeed make us all each other’s keeper, just as we were intended to be.

“But what can we do?” returned Weir.

Perhaps he was the less inclined to listen to the old man, that he was busy with a coffin for his daughter, who was lying dead down the street.  And so my poor affairs were talked of over the coffin-planks.  Well, well, it was no bad omen.

“I tell you what, Mr Weir, this here’s a serious business.  And it seems to me it’s not shipshape o’ you to go on with that plane o’ yours, when we’re talkin’ about parson.”

“Well, Old Rogers, I meant no offence.  Here goes.  Now, what have you to say?  Though if it’s offence to parson you’re speakin’ of, I know, if I were parson, who I’d think was takin’ the greatest liberty, me wi’ my plane, or you wi’ your fancies.”

“Belay there, and hearken.”

So Old Rogers went into as many particulars as he thought fit, to prove that his suspicion as to the state of my mind was correct; which particulars I do not care to lay in a collected form before my reader, he being in no need of such a summing up to give his verdict, seeing the parson has already pleaded guilty.  When he had finished,

“Supposing all you say, Old Rogers,” remarked Thomas, “I don’t yet see what we’ve got to do with it.  Parson ought to know best what he’s about.”

“But my daughter tells me,” said Rogers, “that Miss Oldcastle has no mind to marry Captain Everard.  And she thinks if parson would only speak out he might have a chance.”

Weir made no reply, and was silent so long, with his head bent, that Rogers grew impatient.

“Well, man, ha’ you nothing to say now—­not for your best friend—­on earth, I mean—­and that’s parson?  It may seem a small matter to you, but it’s no small matter to parson.”

“Small to me!” said Weir, and taking up his tool, a constant recourse with him when agitated, he began to plane furiously.