"Us ought to live and let live, I suppose."
"Charity—that's all I ask. I only want 'em to practise the first and last thing their Lord begged for, and preached for, and prayed for."
"You'm very charitable, I'm sure—and never name the kind things you do—though John Prout tells about them."
"Does he? No, no, they're in his imagination. Prout spoils me and thinks too well of me. So do you."
"I'm sorry for you, because you've got such a lot of queer opinions, seemingly, and none to let 'em off upon. You must feel like bursting with trouble sometimes, from the look of your eyes."
He laughed at that and abruptly left her. It was his custom now to appear and depart without any formal salute. Sometimes, after absence of days, he would suddenly be at her side after dawn, or at evening. Then he would resume the thread of his last speeches, as though no interval had fallen between.
There was no secrecy in these interviews, and often another, or Brendon himself, might be present at them. But when once Woodrow appealed to Daniel, before his wife, to be larger-minded and more tolerant, the giant shook his head. He held it wickedness to be easy with wrong ideas. To him that man was dishonest, who had not the courage of his own opinions; and disloyal, who could even endure arguments directed against his faith.
CHAPTER IV
SATURDAY NIGHT
After heavy rain the evening cleared awhile and the sky showed palest blue, touched with little clouds that carried the sunset fire. But banks of mist already began to roll up with night, and their vans, as they billowed along the south, were touched with rose. Darkness swiftly followed; the world faded away under a cold fog, that increased in density until all things were hidden and smothered by it. Into the valleys it rolled, swept croft and heath and the channels of the rivers, sank into the deep lanes, searched the woods, spread darker than night upon the lowlands. Outside the Castle Inn it hung like wool, and across it, from the windows of the bar, streamed out radiance of genial light. But this illumination was choked within a dozen yards of its starting point; and, if a door was opened, the fog crept in with the visitor.