There was one man, though, who seemed to be hunting Geoffrey about from place to place, but he avoided him in his anger.
“I know what he wants to say to me,” he cried, “and, by George! I won’t have it. I never did strike any one wearing the cloth, but I’m in that aggravated state of mind just now that if he did speak to me, and begin to preach, I should hit him.”
It is needless to say that the man he avoided was the vicar.
“Reverend Master Lee has been here again, sir,” said Amos Pengelly to him one morning, “and I said you’d be here soon, and he’s coming again.”
“Then I won’t see him,” cried Geoffrey, angrily. “Look here, Pengelly, I’m not going to be driven out of Carnac. People are sending me to Coventry, and are trying to aggravate me into going, but I sha’n’t go.”
“No, sir, I wouldn’t go,” said Pengelly, quietly. “I’d stay here and put the mine right, and then make amends.”
Trethick turned upon him fiercely, but Pengelly did not shrink, and the young man uttered an impatient “pish!”
“Look here, Pengelly, I must have lodgings somewhere. What am I to do? I’m not a dog to live in this kennel of an office.”
“You can share my place if you like.”
“No, no; I told you I would not.”