Miss Lucy looked shocked, but Mr. Warton only laughed.
“Hullo, Joseph,” said he, “speaking evil of your spiritual pastors! However, I won’t say you’re altogether wrong. Parsons are but men.”
“But, Sir,” said I, quite confidently, “I’m sure no clergyman can stand up for fighting and quarrelling.”
“Of course not,” said he; “but what then?”
“Well, Sir, these sports, as they call them, are just fighting, and nothing else, and lead to all sorts of quarrels and bad blood, and so—”
“They don’t lead to nothing of the kind,” shouted Joe; “and you know nothing about it, Dick.”
“Now, Joe, at our last feast,” said Miss Lucy, “didn’t Reuben Yates get his head broken, and his arms all black and blue at backsword play?”
“Yes, and didn’t you and mother patch him up with yards of diachylum, and give him his supper every night for a week, to come and be doctored and lectured? Rube liked his suppers well enough, and didn’t mind the plastering and lecturing much; but if he don’t go in to-morrow for the young gamesters’ prize, my name ain’t Joe Hurst.”
“Then he’ll be a very ungrateful, wicked fellow,” said Miss Lucy.