"Plenty, I should hope," said I (though proud in the end to say "not one"); "but what a fuss you make! Who are they?"
"As if thee didn't know!" cried Ikey, staring with indignation at me.
"How should I know when I never clapped eyes on either of them till this moment?"
"Thou hast crossed the water for something then, Davy. Them be the two Passons!"
"Two Passons!" I could not say it exactly as he sounded it. "I never heard of two Passons."
"'A wants to draive me mad, 'a dooth," said Ikey, in self-commune: "Did 'e never hear tell of Passon Chowne, and Passon Jack, man alive now?"
It was hopeless to try any more with him, for I could not ding into his stupid head the possibility of such ignorance. He could only believe that I feigned it for the purpose of driving him out of his senses, or making little of his native land. So I felt that the best thing I could do was to look at those two great gentlemen accurately and impartially, and thus form my own opinion. Hence there was prospect of further pleasure, in coming to know more about them.
Verily they were goodly men, so far as the outer frame goes; the one for size, and strength, and stature—and the other for face, form, and quickness. I felt as surely as men do feel, who have dealed much among other men, that I was gazing upon two faces not of the common order. And they walked as if they knew themselves to be ever so far from the average. Not so much with pride, or conceit, or any sort of arrogance, but with a manner of going distinct from the going of fellow-creatures. Whether this may have been so, because they were both going straight to the devil, is a question that never crossed my mind, until I knew more about them. For our parsons in Wales, take them all in all, can hardly be called gentlemen; except, of course, our own, who was Colonel Lougher's brother, also the one at Merthyr Mawr, and St Brides, and one or two other places where they were customers of mine; but most of the rest were small farmers' sons, or shopkeepers' boys, and so on. These may do very well for a parish, or even a congregation that never sees a gentleman (except when they are summoned—and not always then); however, this sort will not do for a man who has served, ay, and been in battle, under two baronets and an earl.
Therefore I looked with some misgiving at these two great parsons; but it did not take mo long to perceive that each of them was of good birth at least, whatever his manners afterwards,—men who must feel themselves out of their rank when buttoned into a pulpit for reasoning with Devonshire plough-tail Bobs, if indeed they ever did so; and as for their flocks, they kept dogs enough at any rate to look after them. For they both kept hounds; and both served their Churches in true hunting fashion—that is to say, with a steeplechase, taking true country at full gallop over hedges and ditches, and stabling the horse in the vestry. All this I did not know as yet, or I must have thought even more than I did concerning those two gentlemen. The taller of the two was as fair and ruddy, and as free of countenance as a June rose in the sunshine; a man of commanding build and figure, but with no other command about him, and least of all, that of his own self. The other it was that took my gaze, and held it, having caught mine eyes, until I forgot myself, and dropped them under some superior strength. For the time, I knew not how I felt, or what it was that vanquished me; only that my spirit owned this man's to be its master. Whether from excess of goodness, or from depth of desperate evil, at the time I knew not.