Olver struck his fist on the table.
'I know better than that. No offence meant—then none should be taken, mate. Come, we'll have an evenin', and talk over old times.'
'You are welcome to stay if you will keep in order your saucy tongue.'
'Old times! Old times on the Paycock! Ah, cap'n!'
Rattenbury signed to Dench to take a seat, and called to Jane Marley to serve supper.
In a very short while the ruffle on Job's temper and countenance was allayed. Olver knew his man, knew that he dearly loved to chat over past days, to furbish up remembrance of old scenes of adventure, recall old comrades, and fight old battles. And situated where Captain Rattenbury was, on that side of the Axe where the only persons associated with the water were Preventive men, and all others were farmers and labourers on the land, he was thrown on Olver as an associate.
For reasons best known to himself he kept the men in the service of the Revenue at arm's-length, and such as were connected with the soil, and whose talk was of bullocks, were not to his taste.
As a man advances in life he makes imperceptibly a volte-face. He turns his back on the future as devoid of interest to him, that he may gaze fondly at the ground whence he started. Youth values what it can acquire only for what it can make out of it; age appreciates what it holds in hand only for what it was and for the efforts expended in modelling it to what it now is. The present is appreciated, not as containing in its womb that which will be, but for the faded traces perceived in it of past loveliness. As the threads that connect man with his early career break, those that remain are clung to with intense tenacity.
Rattenbury did not like Dench, he even regarded him with repugnance; yet, as there were none other in the place who had been in any way linked with his early life, he endured him as one with whom he could converse with pleasure.