"A man can backbite the dead, and spit out his poison against them as never hurt him in word or deed," answered Heathman Lintern. "'Tis always your way to blackguard them that be out of earshot and the power to answer; and the further a man be away, the louder you yelp. Faults or no faults, the likes of you wasn't worthy to wipe his shoes."
"You Linterns—well, I'll say nought," began Jack Head; but the subject was too attractive for him and he proceeded.
"If he left your mother any money, it's against the law, and you can tell her so. It wasn't his to leave, and if she got money from him in secret, it's my money—not hers—mine, and many other people's before it's hers. And if she was honest she'd give it back."
"You've lost your wits over this," answered Lintern, "and if you wasn't an old man, Jack, I'd hammer your face for mentioning my mother's name in such a way. She never had a penny by him, and the next man that says she did shall get a flea in his ear—old or young."
"Let it be a lesson to all sorts and conditions not to trust a Dissenter," said Gollop. "I've known pretty well what they're good for from the first moment they began to lift their heads in the land. They never were to be trusted, and never will be. And as for Nathan Baskerville, he was a double serpent, and I shall tell the truth out against him when and where I please; and why for not?"
"You don't know the meaning of truth," began Heathman; "no more don't that old cat, your sister."
"Better leave my sister alone, or 'twill be the worse for you," answered the parish clerk.
"I'll leave her alone when she leaves my mother alone, and not sooner. She a lying, foul-minded old baggage—not to be trusted in a respectable house—and if I was better to do, I'd have the law of her for the things she's said."
"You talk of the law," answered Jack. "You might just so well talk of the prophets. One's as rotten as t'other nowadays. The law's gone that weak that a man's savings can be taken out of his pocket by the first thief that comes along with an honest face; and him powerless. Five-and-thirty pound—that's what he had of mine, and the law looks on and does nought."
"Because there's nought for it to do," suggested Mr. Elford. "The law can't make bricks without straw——"