raking-down

Updated: May 10, 2025

Daws's church were mainly very human, somewhat artful, more self-excusing than self-accusing, rather good-natured, and decidedly weak, they quietly shed that portion of the sermon which referred to themselves, and, accepting York and Scott who were both in defiant attendance as curious examples of those ideal beings above referred to, felt a certain satisfaction which, I fear, was not altogether Christian-like in their "raking-down."

Bret Harte - Mrs. Skagg's Husbands and Other Stories