“Not that, sir,” said Leonard smiling. “But the world has thriven with me at last, though not without some rough usage at starting. Ah, Mr Dale, you can little guess how often I have thought of you and your discourse on Knowledge; and, what is more, how I have lived to feel the truth of your words, and to bless the lesson.”
Parson, (much touched and flattered.)—“I expected nothing less of you, Leonard; you were always a lad of great sense, and sound judgment. So you have thought of my little discourse on Knowledge, have you?”
Squire.—“Hang knowledge! I have reason to hate the word. It burned down three ricks of mine; the finest ricks you ever set eyes on, Mr Fairfield.”
Parson.—“That was not knowledge, Squire; that was ignorance.”
Squire.—“Ignorance! The deuce it was. I’ll just appeal to you, Mr Fairfield. We have been having sad riots in the shire, and the ringleader was just such another lad as you were!”
Leonard.—“I am very much obliged to you, Mr Hazeldean. In what respect?”
Squire.—“Why, he was a village genius, and always reading some cursed little tract or other; and got mighty discontented with King, Lords, and Commons, I suppose, and went about talking of the wrongs of the poor, and the crimes of the rich, till, by Jove, sir, the whole mob rose one day with pitchforks and sickles, and smash went Farmer Smart’s thrashing-machines; and on the same night my ricks were on fire. We caught the rogues, and they were all tried; but the poor deluded labourers were let off with a short imprisonment. The village genius, thank heaven, is sent packing to Botany Bay.”
Leonard.—“But, did his books teach him to burn ricks, and smash machines?”
Parson.—“No; he said quite the contrary, and declared that he had no hand in those misdoings.”
Squire.—“But he was proved to have excited, with his wild talk, the boobies who had! ’Gad, sir, there was a hypocritical Quaker once, who said to his enemy, ‘I can’t shed thy blood, friend, but I will hold thy head under water till thou art drowned.’ And so there is a set of demagogical fellows, who keep calling out, ‘Farmer This is an oppressor, and Squire That is a vampire! But no violence! Don’t smash their machines, don’t burn their ricks! Moral force, and a curse on all tyrants!’ Well, and if poor Hodge thinks moral force is all my eye, and that the recommendation is to be read backwards, in the devil’s way of reading the Lord’s Prayer, I should like to know which of the two ought to go to Botany Bay—Hodge who comes out like a man, if he thinks he is wronged, or ’tother sneaking chap, who makes use of his knowledge to keep himself out of the scrape?”