Mr Anderson was in agony, and interposing said, “I think, Jack, if you had any decency or feeling for me, you wouldn’t insult a clergyman at my table. You might be satisfied with driving one out of the room.”
“Ho! ho! Mr Numskull, but you’re thin in the skin! You have a wonderful leaning towards the corbies; you might fairly volunteer to defend the rector, but I beg you to let the priest answer for himself.”
“And were I to answer according to your merits, a horsewhip would afford the fitting reply. Respect for my own character forbids that appeal, and protects your insolence. Yet you go not unchastised. The cupidity of your heart, like every other crime, engenders its own punishment; and though you appear to glory in acts which shock the feelings of all other men, yet, despite your coarse ribaldry, there is an avenger within your own breast, which with scorpion venom stings you to madness, and will never cease its gnawings till penitence, a very unlikely consummation, pour its healing balm on ulcers scared and encrusted by the fires of iniquity!”
“Ho! ho! how very familiar you black-coats are with horrors! How very glibly you can ‘talk of hell where devils dwell, and thunder out damnation.’ Now, I think you priests should be more modest. It would serve your interests better to merely consign us to purgatory.”
“Your own acts, Rivers, determine such cases.”
“Ho! ho! I am aware of that; but, notwithstanding, cannot a little bit of clerical hocus-pocus serve us on a pinch?”
“The habitually profane have little to hope for either from God or man; they sneer at blessings mercifully offered, and too frequently die in their sins.”
“Then, under all these circumstances I think it as wise to have nothing to do with your purgatory.”
“I wish it may not lie your fate to go farther and fare worse.”
“Well, the devil couldn’t bandy compliments with you, Mr K——; so I think, brother Bill, you had better push about the jorum. The priest has too much tongue for me to-night, and there’s no moving his temper. But wait a bit: if I don’t gage him to his heart’s content, the first public place I meet him in, my name’s not Snap Rivers.” The party separated good friends, and the priest paid no attention to the threat. A month had elapsed, and Mr K—— having business in the nearest town, found himself on the market-day perusing a placard, announcing the exhibition of a large beautiful milk-white bullock, said to be a ton weight. In the midst of his reading the priest was surprised to hear himself called by name. “Ho! ho! Mr K——, come hither!” His eye followed in the direction of the sounds, and at about a perch distant he beheld Rivers, dressed as usual in his long blue cloak, gun-mouthed breeches, blue rib-and-fur stockings, his red nightcap and fire-shovel hat—as ludicrous a figure, “take him for all and all,” as ever stood in a market.