“Well, let him,” said the founder. “He should be a rich man, too, by this time, for he has made money from me as well as I have from the King. Don’t talk of it, though; it makes me dwell upon the past.”
They smoked on for a time without speaking, and then, with a patient, piteous aspect in his face, the founder turned to his visitor.
“I’ve been a wicked man, parson,” he said.
“So we all are,” said Master Peasegood, bluffly. “I always sinned from a desire for the good things of this life. I love goodly food, and good ale, and good tobacco now; and I shall go on sinning to the end,” he added, taking a hearty draught.
“I have been harsh and hard, and I’ve not done my duty here, Master Peasegood; and these punishments have come upon me for my sins.”
“Stuff, stuff!” cried Master Peasegood. “I won’t sit and hear it. Don’t talk of your Maker as if he were some petty, revengeful man like us, ready to visit every little weakness upon our heads with a misfortune, or to pay us for being good boys with a slice of bread and honey. Out on such religious ideas as that, Master Cobbe, and think of your God as one who is great and good. Bah! It aggravates me to hear and see people fall down and worship the ugly image they have set up in their hearts, one that every work of the Creator gives the lie to for its falsity and cruel wrong. Bear your burden, Jeremiah Cobbe, like a man. It is not in us to know the ins and outs of God’s ways; and it is a wicked and impious sin for people to say this is a judgment, or that is a judgment, and to pretend to know what the All-Seeing thinks and does. You say you’ve been a wicked man, Master Cobbe.”
“Yes, yes,” said the founder sadly; “and I have but one hope now, and that is that I may see my darling once again.”
“Amen to that,” said Master Peasegood; “but, as to your wickedness, I wish every man was as wicked, and hot-tempered, and true-hearted, and generous, and frank, and industrious, and forgiving as thou art, Jeremiah Cobbe; and—Will you have that ale flagon filled again? Much talking makes me dry.”
The founder smiled, and called for Croftly’s wife, who replenished the flagon, bobbed a curtsey to the parson, and re-entered the cottage.
“I like you, Jeremiah Cobbe,” continued Master Peasegood, after setting down the flagon with a satisfied sigh; “but don’t be superstitious, man, like our sovereign master the King, who has written a book to hand down his wisdom to posterity.”