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"My brother and I, we never hit it off, somehow. So when my father died I cleared. You don't remember his funeral, I suppose? No, no that was before your time. They hung the church all over with black broadcloth of the best. That was the way in those days, and the cloth was the parson's perquisite. The funeral hangings used to keep him in coats and trousers.
I'll stay outside the door till you've done with the clergyman but make haste, for the night's almost over, and it's as much as the parson's life is worth to stay here after daybreak." "I will make haste," said the guilty man, tremulously; "but, Job, where are you going what are you doing? leave the light! here, Job, by the bed-side."
The parson's daughter, a shy maid of nine or ten, went to her father, with her pet lamb, and said to him, "I must give this, too, for there are little children who are crying for bread and meat." "No, no," answered the pastor, patting her head and smiling upon her. "They do not ask help from babes. Run to bed and you shall play with your lamb to-morrow."
Up to my horse he went with that oversteadiness of the man in his cups, who moves with the stiffness of a tree walking, as if every lift of a heavy foot was the uplifting of a root fast in the ground, and went to stroking his head; when straightway, my horse either not liking his touch or the smell of his liquored breath, and judging as was his wont that the fault must by some means lie with his own race, straightway lashed out a vicious hind leg like a hammer, and came within an ace of the parson's own valuable horse not the one which he proposed trading for mine and the wind of the lash frighted the parson's horse, and he in his turn lashed out, and another horse at his side sprang aside; and straightway there was such a commotion in the tavern yard as never was, and slaves and white servants shouting, and forcing rearing horses to their regular standing, and I stroking my beast, and striving as best I could to bring his pure horse wits to comprehend the strong pressure and responsibility of humanity for the situation; and the Barry brothers and Captain Jaynes came running forth, Captain Jaynes swearing in such wise that it was beyond the understanding of any man unversed in that language of the high seas; and Nick Barry, laughing wildly, and Dick, glooming, as was the difference with the two brothers when in liquor.
It is easy enough to be virtuous when you are a professor of pure reason, a regular, punctual mechanism, a thing for the citizens of Königsberg to set their watches by. But if you happen to be one of those fellows to whom all the roses nod and all the stars wink ... I am for Schelling's principle: the highest spirits are above the law. No, no, the parson's explanation won't do.
The first strong idea which the preacher utters gives birth to a train of thought and leads me onward step by step quite out of hearing of the good man's voice unless he be indeed a son of thunder. At my open window, catching now and then a sentence of the "parson's saw," I am as well situated as at the foot of the pulpit stairs.
"Waal, ye see, thar was two letters on the poke, which seemed to pint to somethin' bad. Pritchen was out huntin' mountain sheep a short time ago, so he says, in the Ibex Valley. While thar he stayed in an old log shanty, an' the place was all upsot lookin', so he says, as if a terrible fight had taken place. Then he finds a book layin' on the floor with the parson's name inside."
Any guests that I may have here are MY guests, and NOT guests of the church. Remember that, please." There was an embarrassing silence. The deacons recalled that the pastor's salary WAS slightly in arrears. Elverson coughed meekly. Strong started. "You keep out of this, Elverson!" he cried. "I'm running this affair and I ain't forgetting my duty nor the parson's."
That description of the parson's mien and manner, which with his usual niceness of observation, Gaffer Solomons thus sketched off, will convey to you some idea of the earnestness with which the parson pleaded the cause he had undertaken to advocate.
Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of discretion, and the squire had long since placed her property entirely at her own disposal, Mr. Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the parson's corollary remark, "That this was a delicacy which could not be expected from every English pretender to the lady's hand."
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