"No, Sir, I can't; and as a Minister of the Gospel,
you'll never insist on it. He made such horrible statements that I
had to go straight home and read over my old mother's marriage lines.
It fairly dazed me to hear him talk so confident, and she in her
grave, poor soul!"
"You ought to have demanded his name."
"I did, Sir; naturally I did. And he told me to go to the naughty
place for it."
"Well, but what like is he?"
"Oh, as to that, Sir, a man of ordinary shape, like yourself, in a
plain blue coat and a wig shorter than ordinary; nothing about him to
prepare you for the language he lets fly."
"And," put in Arch'laus Spry, "he's taken lodgings down to Durgan
with the Widow Polkinghorne, and eaten his dinner--a fowl and a jug
of cider with it. After dinner he hired Robin's boat and went for a
row. I thought it my duty, as he was pushing off, to sidle up in a
friendly way. I said to him, 'The weather, Sir, looks nice and
settled': that is what I said, neither more nor less, but using those
very words. What d'ee think he answered? He said, 'That's capital,
my man: now go along and annoy somebody else.' Wasn't that a
disconnected way of talking? If you ask my opinion, putting two and
two together, I say he's most likely some poor wandering loonatic.
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