“Ay, sir, do,” said the verger. “The Bishop, God bless’un, he do set great store by all old statutes, and so do his son, Dr. William Coke; and Mistress Hilary Unett she takes after ’m; seems to run in the family like. For my part, I be glad Waghorn set the soldiers on useless stocks and stones and spared the glass windows, for the cathedral do be mortal cold on windy days at service time.”
This, then, explained in part Hilary’s angry mood. Perhaps had they met under less trying circumstances, she might have been less cruel. Very sore at heart, Gabriel went out again, encountering Joscelyn Heyworth not far from the Palace.
“What plunder are you carrying away, you sacrilegious man?” exclaimed the young Captain, with his genial laugh. “When an honest man turns thief he always betrays himself. What are you hiding under your scarf ends?”
“A bishop’s head,” said Gabriel, grimly.
“Oh! so this explains some of the lady’s wrath.”
“Yes, no wonder she was angry. I am taking this to her grandfather—Bishop Coke.”
“You would do much better to throw it down on the green, and give up the whole connection. What have you to do now with bishops, either in stone or in the flesh? And as to their granddaughters—may heaven preserve me from ever again escorting home an episcopal lady. Like Benedick, ‘I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.’”
“You don’t know her,” said Gabriel. “To-day she was very naturally incensed.”
“Now be a sensible man, Gabriel, and cast that head into the kennel, for I assure you its stony curls are not more stony than the heart of Mistress Hilary.”
“Be silent!” said Gabriel, hotly. “I tell you that you do not know her. Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner, as the proverb hath it.”