The force of this reasoning came home to Cripps. If a man was unable to go to church, there was good room for arguing that his duty towards the public-house must not be too rigidly exacted. Zacchary therefore fetched a sigh. None of the race had broken up at so early an age as that of Tickuss. But still, from his own sad experience, the Carrier knew what pigs were; and he thought that his brother, though younger than himself, might be called away before him.
"Tickuss," he said, "I may a' been too hard. Nobody knows but them that has to do it what the worrit of the roads is. I may a' said a word here and there too much, and a bit outside the Gospel. According to they a man must believe a liar, and forgive un, and forgive un over and over again, the same as I tries to forgive you, Tickuss."
Zacchary offered his hand to his brother, but Leviticus was ashamed to take it. With the load now weighing upon his mind, and the sense in his heart of what Zacchary was, Tickuss—whatever his roguery was—could not make believe to have none of it. So he turned away, with his feelings hurt too much for the clasp fraternal.
"When a man hath no more respect for hiszell," he muttered over his puckered shoulder, "and no more respect for his father and mother avore un, than to call his very next brother but one a rogue and a liar, and a schemer against publics, to my mind he have gone too far, and not shown the manners relied upon."
"Very well," replied Cripps; "just as you like, Tickuss; though I never did hear as I were short of manners; and there's twelve mailes of road as knows better than that. Now, since you go on like that, and there seemeth no chance of supper 'long of 'ee, I shall just walk up to cottage, and ax any orders for the Carrier. Good evening, brother Tickuss."
With these words Zak set off, and Tickuss repented sadly of the evil temper which had forbidden him to shake hands. But now to oppose the Carrier's purpose would be a little too suspicious. He must go his way and take his chance; he was worse than a pig when his mind was made up.
"Go thy way, and be danged to thee!" thought Leviticus, looking after him. "Little thou wilt take, however, but to knock thy thick head again' a wall. Old lady looketh out too sharp for any of they danged old Beckley carcases. Come thee down to our ouze," he shouted in irony after his brother, "and tell us the noos thou hast picked up, and what 'em be doing in Amerikay! A vine time o' life for thee to turn spy!"
It was lucky for him that he made off briskly among thick brushwood and tangled swamps, for Zacchary Cripps at the last word turned round, with his face of a fine plum-colour, and a stamp of rage which made his stiff knees tingle worse than a dozen turnpikes.
"Spy, didst thou say?" he shouted, staring, with his honest, wrathful eyes, through every glimpse of thicket near the spot where his brother had disappeared—"Spy! if thou beest a man come out, and say it again to the face of me! I'll show thee how to spell 'spy' pretty quick. Leviticus Cripps, thou art a coward, to the back of a thief and a sneaking skulk, unless thou comest out of they thick places, to stand to the word thou hast spoken."
Zacchary stood in a wide bay of copse, and he knew that his voice went through the wood; for he spoke with the whole power of his lungs; and the tender leaves above him quivered like a little breath of fringe, and the birds flew out of their ivy castles, and a piece of bare-faced rock in the distance answered him—but nothing else.