"Says he saw my corpse candle last night, and he is at this moment digging my grave on the strength of it."
"My dear fellow, you're joking. Pray, don't give these sort of people any encouragement in their antiquated superstitions. You were always given a little that way yourself, I remember."
"Come, let's go inside, and have lunch together. You are, doubtless, hungry," said Oldstone. "We'll have a good long chat over our meal." Then leaning on his friend's arm, both entered the inn.
Our host and hostess were, of course, delighted at the arrival of the long-absent member, and many allusions were made to old times. Dame Hearty hastily laid the cloth, brought in the lunch of cold beef and pickles, the remains of a rabbit pie, some bread and cheese, with a jug of nut-brown ale, home-brewed and left the two companions to themselves.
"And so our young friend, Vandyke McGuilp, has gone and made a d——d fool of himself," said Rustcoin, after a pause in the conversation. "Well, I thought him a more sensible man. What! one of his talent and position to sink himself to the level of a dish-clout! Why! it's sheer madness."
"My dear fellow; don't talk like that," cried Oldstone. "If you'd only seen the girl, I assure you——"
"Bah! I make no doubt but that she's pretty—that's not the point. You won't pretend that she was any better educated than the rest of her class," maintained Rustcoin.
"Educated! educated!" exclaimed Oldstone. "She had something in her far beyond what you would call education—by which you probably mean book learning, or that flimsy social veneer which anyone can acquire who chooses to move within the radius of a certain narrow circle, where all is artificial, unreal, cold, hypocritical, and false. This is a girl of character, truth-loving, sweet, and unselfish—pure as an angel—intelligent, and with fine sensibilities."
"Nonsense," broke in Rustcoin, testily. "These country wenches are ever stubborn, hard-headed, self-interested, exacting, undocile, unteachable. Peasant she was born, and peasant she will remain to the end of her days. God help the poor idiot with such a one for a mate! She may be well enough as a wife to some country bumpkin, but for any rational being to hamper himself with one of these clods——"
"But she's not one of these clods," persisted Oldstone. "I tell you this is quite an exceptional case."