'Not intend to go! Very well, then, I shall have to go to Chimsworthy and bring Mr. Nanspian. I'll tell him you haven't the heart to meet folks. You prefer to hide your head here, as if you had committed something of which you are ashamed. Very well. When he hears that you durstn't show, he will go and swagger at the "Ring of Bells" without you.'
'I do not choose to meet him. He may be there after all.'
'Not a bit. When I left all were assembled, and he was not there. May I be struck dead if he was there! The parson said to the rest, "Whatever shall we do without Master Langford, my own churchwarden, so to speak—my right hand, and the representative of the oldest and grandest family in the place. That is a come-down of greatness if he don't turn up at the feoffees' dinner." May I die on the doorstep if these were not his very words! Then he went on, "I did reckon on Master Langford to be here to keep me in countenance. Now here I lay down my knife and fork, and not a bite will I eat, nor a cut will I make into that bubbling, frizzling, savoury goose, unless Taverner Langford be here. So go along, Crout, and fetch him."'
'Is that true?' asked Langford, flattered.
'May my remaining leg and arm wither if it be not! Then Farmer Burneby up and said, "He durstn't come, he's mortally afraid of meeting Hillary Nanspian."'
'Did he say that?' asked Taverner, flushing.
'Strike me blind if he did not!'
'I'll come. Go on, I will follow.'
When Crout returned to the 'Ring of Bells,' he found Nanspian there, large and red. The cripple slipped up to Piper and whispered, 'He'll be here, leave a place opposite the other, and fall to at the beef.'
'The fly,' observed the parson to a couple of farmers—'the fly is the great enemy of the turnip. It attacks the seed-leaves when they appear.'