“Whom the gods will destroy, they first make mad,” muttered the vicar to himself, in the old Latin.
“It would be giving way to them,” said Richard, “and that I’ll never do.”
“But you give way when you do open,” said the vicar.
“I’m not going to argue that,” said Richard, haughtily; “I’ve made up my mind, and I shall keep to it.”
“Then leave your orders, and go quietly away for a few days, till the works are in full swing again.”
Richard had made up his mind to do that very thing; but, as the vicar proposed it, and Eve eagerly acquiesced, he was dead against it on the instant.
“I shall stay here,” he said firmly, “and have the police to guard the house.”
“It is like inviting attack,” said the vicar, excitedly. “For your mother’s and Miss Pelly’s sake, don’t do that. It is throwing down the gauntlet to a set of men maddened by a belief in their wrongs. Many of them are fierce with hunger.”
“Bah! Stuff!” said Richard; “they’ve got plenty saved up, and—he, he, he!—nicely they’ve humbugged you into relieving them with soup and bread and meat. You don’t know Dumford yet, Mr Selwood.”
“If I am to know it as you know it,” thought the vicar, “I hope I never shall;” but he did not give utterance to his thoughts.