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Updated: September 4, 2025
It was only when Festus Clasby had supplied the materials for their wakes that the great pencil, with one mighty stroke of terrible finality, ran like a sword through their names, wiping their very memories from the hillsides. All purchases were entered up in Festus Clasby's mighty record without vulgar discussions as to price.
"What way might that be?" asked Festus Clasby, his manner growing sceptical. "I will go to the shopman with it and get the half-crown. Having got the half-crown I will hurry back here or you can come with me and I will pay you back your one-and-six. In that way I will make another shilling and do you no wrong. Is that agreed?" "It is not agreed," said Festus Clasby. "Give me out the tin can.
"Well, my good man?" queried Festus Clasby, a phrase usually addressed across his counter, his hands outspread, to longstanding customers. "The last of a rare lot," said Mac-an-Ward, deftly poising the tin can on the top of his fingers, so that it stood level with Festus Clasby's great face. Festus Clasby took this as a business proposition, and the soul of the trader revolved within him.
The Peelers will say to you, 'We know you to be a man of great worth, and the law will uphold you. But the law is slow, and a man's good name goes fast." Festus Clasby fingered his money in his pocket, and the touch of it made him struggle. "The can may be this man's for all I know. You have no brother, and I believe you to be a fraud." "That, too, will be for the law to decide.
The small farmers and herds and the hardy little dark mountainy men had this reverential feeling about the good man and his shop. They approached the establishment as holy pilgrims might approach a shrine. They stood at his counter with the air of devotees. Festus Clasby waited on them with patience and benignity. He might be some warm-blooded god handing gifts out over the counter.
"I don't rightly know I forget some shillings, maybe." "Oh! And of property?" "No matter. It is only one article, but property." "Come home, Festus; in the name of God get out of this," advised the good neighbour. But Festus Clasby was strangely moved. He was behaving like a man who had drink taken. Something had happened wounding to his soul. "I will not go," he cried.
"Upon me?" Festus Clasby exclaimed, his chest swelling. "My name has never crossed the mind of a policeman, except, maybe, for what he might owe me at the end of the month for pigs' heads. I never stood in the shadow of the law. And to this man standing by your side I have nothing to say." "You have. You bought from him that which did not belong to him.
Mac-an-Ward hitched his trousers at the hips like a sailor, spat through his teeth, end eyed Festus Clasby through a slit in his half-closed eyes. There was a little patter of the feet on the road on the part of Mac-an-Ward, and Festus Clasby knew enough of the world and its ways to gather that these were scientific movements invented to throw a man in a struggle.
The business of the establishment was conducted on the basis of a belief in the man who sold and acquiescence in that belief on the part of the man who purchased. The customers of Festus Clasby would as soon have thought of questioning his prices as they would of questioning the right of the earth to revolve round the sun.
When you saw his name on the signboard standing stark from the landscape, and when you saw Festus Clasby behind his counter, you knew instinctively that both had always stood for at least twenty shillings in the pound. Now, it came to pass that on a certain day Festus Clasby was passing through the outskirts of the nearest country town on his homeward journey, his cart laden with provisions.
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