“I should say that it was very nearly the worst house in the town!” said the curate.
“Indeed! I will speak to him about it.”
“I would speak to him about getting drunk, if I were you!” Clode replied with a short laugh. “He is drunk six days in the week; every day except Saturday, when he comes to you and pulls a long face above a clean neck-cloth. He is the talk of the town!”
The rector stared; naturally wondering what on earth had come to the curate to induce him to take that line. He was rather surprised than offended, however, and merely answered, “I am sorry to hear it. I will speak to him about it.”
“Who is this person?” Miss Hammond asked hurriedly. “I do not think that I know any one in the town of that name.” The subject seemed to be a dangerous one, but anything was better than to leave the curate free to conduct the discussion.
He it was, however, who answered her. “He is a protégé of the rector’s!” he said, with a laugh that was undisguisedly offensive. “You had better ask him.”
“He is a servant of Lord Dynmore’s,” Lindo said, speaking to her with studious politeness, and otherwise ignoring Clode’s interruption.
“But why you find him in board and lodging at the Bull and Staff free, gratis, and for nothing,” interposed the curate again with the same rudeness, “passes my comprehension!”
“Perhaps that is my business,” said the rector, losing patience.
Both men stood up. Laura rose, too, with a scared face, and stood gazing at them, amazed at the storm which had so suddenly arisen. The curate’s height, as the two stood confronting one another, seemed to give him the advantage; and his dark rugged face, kindling with long-repressed feelings, wore the provoking smile of one who, confident in his own powers, has wilfully thrown down the glove and is determined to see the matter through. The rector’s face, on the other hand, was red; and, though he faced his man squarely and threw back his head with the haughtiness of his kind, his anger was mixed with wonder, and it was plain that he was at a loss to understand the other’s ebullition or to decide how to deal with it. There was a moment’s silence, which Laura had not the presence of mind, nor the curate the will, to break. Then the rector said, “Perhaps we had better let this drop for the moment, Mr. Clode.”