“I do; and no amount of repentance, sir, for your ill-deeds would make you so.”
“Look here!” cried the young fellow, “you’ve been talking to me like a man sometimes, and then you’ve been dodging into your clerical jargon again. I’ve listened to you pretty patiently, and have borne more than I should from any one else because you are a parson; but you’ve gone too far, and now it’s my turn. If Leo—”
“Miss Leonora Salis, sir.”
“If Leo tells me she won’t have any more to say to me, I shall go; but as for you—hark here. I shall write to her, I shall meet her, and I shall ask her to meet me just as often as I please. Not her equal, I! Why, you miserable, beggarly, hundred-a-year, threadbare curate, how dare you address me as you do? Do you know who I am?”
“Yes: Tom Candlish, brother of Sir Luke Candlish, of Candlish Hall.”
“Yes, sir, descendants of one of our finest English families.”
“Descendants, sir,” retorted the curate, “of a miserly, money-spinning old scoundrel, who gave impecunious James the First so many hundred pounds for a contemptible baronetcy, which has come down to one of as disgraceful a pair as ever sat like a blight upon a pleasant English village.”
“You insolent hound!” roared Tom Candlish; “I’ll ride over to May and have you kicked out of your curacy.”
“Do,” said the curate.
“No, I won’t, for Leo’s sake. But, look here, master parson, don’t you interfere with me, or, by God, sir! I’ll give you the most cursed horsewhipping I ever gave man in my life. By George! if it wasn’t for your white neck-cloth and black coat, hang me. I’d do it now.”