“Oh! a big, broad-shouldered man, with no whiskers and as villainous a face as I have ever seen.”
“Hey, he’s a rum un is Bi—— I mean there are rum fellows about just now.”
Mr. Clayton noticed the slip of the tongue, but prudently changed the subject.
“You were noticing just now the nasty-looking scar on my cheek; I’ll tell you how I got it.” Our business-like superintendent had a large canvas pocket nailed under the seat of his gig, in which to put parcels of books, reports, and other matters for safe keeping. Leaning forward he brought out of that receptacle the smaller half of a red brick. “You see that,” said he, handing it to his companion, “I was riding to Nestleton a short time since to preach the Gospel of Jesus in Farmer Houston’s kitchen,”—here Black Morris gave a sudden start of surprise. “As I passed the corner of Midden Harbour, a number of men and boys threw a shower of stones at me. None of them hit me, but the gig suffered a bit, and Jack got a nasty blow or two. I turned round to speak to them, but at that instant somebody threw that brickbat, cutting my cheek, and leaving a scar which I shall carry to my dying day. Black Morris, you gave me that brickbat,” said Mr. Clayton, with a smile, “allow me to give it you back, you may want it again.”
“The d——!” said Morris, in unmixed surprise, “then you are the Methody parson.”
“Yes, I’m the Methodist parson, Morris, but not the devil, as your words might imply. On the contrary, I hate him, and I am spending my life in trying to get poor souls away from him, and to take them to the Saviour.”
“But how do you know that it was me that threw it, when there were so many of ’em.”
“Because it was thrown afterwards, and because I saw you do it.”
“Then if you could have sworn to it, why didn’t you tell who it was, an’ get a summons? You seem to have ta’en it wonderfully quiet.”
There was half a tone of contempt in the question and remark, which intimated that the Methodist parson was what he would have called “a white-livered sort of a fellow.”