“What an old stupid you must be!” cried Tod to Lee. “He won’t excuse you; he’s the wrong sort of parson to do it.”
“And a pretty kettle of fish you’ve made of it,” added Tom Coney. “I wouldn’t have minded much, had it been my letter; but he is different, you know.”
Poor Lee turned his eyes on me: perhaps remembering that he had asked me, the other time, to stand his friend with Miss Whitney. No one could be his friend now: when the Rector took up a grievance he did not let it drop again; especially if it were his own. Good-hearted Jack, his sailor-brother, would have screened Lee, though all the letters in the parish had got burnt.
At eleven o’clock precisely the Reverend Herbert Tanerton entered Salmon’s shop; and poor Lee, not daring to disobey his mandate, crept in after him. They had it out in the room behind. Salmon was properly severe; told Lee he was not sure but the offence involved penal servitude, and that he deserved hanging. A prosperous tradesman in his small orbit, the man was naturally inclined to be dictatorial, and was ambitious of standing well with his betters, especially the Rector. Lee was suspended there and then; and Spicer was informed that for a time, until other arrangements were made, he must do double duty. Spicer, vexed at this, for it would take him so much the more time from his legitimate business, that of horse doctor, told Lee he was a fool, and deserved not only hanging but drawing and quartering.
“What’s up?” asked Ben Rymer, crossing the road from his own shop to accost Lee, as the latter came out of Salmon’s. Ben was the chemist now—had been since Margaret’s marriage—and was steady; and Ben, it was said, would soon pass his examination for surgeon. He had his hands in his pockets and his white apron on, for Mr. Ben Rymer had no false pride, and would as soon show himself to Timberdale in an apron as in a dress-coat.
Lee told his tale, confessing the sin of the morning. Mr. Rymer nodded his head significantly several times as he heard it, and pushed his red hair from his capacious forehead.
“They won’t look over it this time, Lee.”
“If I could but get some one to be my friend with the Rector, and ask him to forgive me,” said Lee. “Had your father been alive, Mr. Rymer, I think he would have done it for me.”
“Very likely. No good to ask me—if that’s what you are hinting at. The Rector looks upon me as a black sheep, and turns on me the cold shoulder. But I don’t think he is one to listen, Lee, though the king came to ask him.”
“What I shall do I don’t know,” bewailed Lee. “If the place is stopped, the pay stops, and I’ve not another shilling in the world, or the means of earning one. My wife’s ailing, and Mamie gets worse day by day; and there are the two little ones. They are all upon me.”