I complimented him on his frank method of dealing, and told him to look at the book if he pleased, but with prudence sufficiently awake to check the declaration that I had not once looked at it myself.
He opened it. We had just assembled in the hall, where breakfast was laid during Winter, before a huge wood fire. Janet had her teeth on her lower lip, watching the old man's face. I did not condescend to be curious; but when I turned my head to him he was puffing through thin lips, and then his mouth crumpled in a knob. He had seen sights.
'By George, I must have breakfast 'fore I go into this!' he exclaimed, and stared as if he had come out of an oven.
Dorothy Beltham reminded him that Prayers had not been read.
'Prayers!' He was about to objurgate, but affirmatived her motion to ring the bell for the servants, and addressed Peterborough: 'You read 'em abroad every morning?'
Peterborough's conscience started off on its inevitable jog-trot at a touch of the whip. 'A-yes; that is—oh, it was my office.' He had to recollect with exactitude:
'I should specify exceptions; there were intervals . . .'
'Please, open your Bible,' the squire cut him short; 'I don't want a damned fine edge on everything.'
Partly for an admonition to him, or in pure nervousness, Peterborough blew his nose monstrously: an unlucky note; nothing went well after it. 'A slight cold,' he murmured and resumed the note, and threw himself maniacally into it. The unexpected figure of Captain Bulsted on tiptoe, wearing the ceremonial depressed air of intruders on these occasions, distracted our attention for a moment.
'Fresh from ship, William?' the squire called out.