“Maybe,” said Sylvanus; “but I think that is a very beautiful observation of Izaak Walton, the great angler; who on hearing the nightingale sing, said:—‘If God gave such music here to the wicked and ungrateful, what will He give to his saints in heaven?’”
“So you do like music after all, friend Crook?” asked Thorsby, sarcastically.
“Yes, natural music,” said Sylvanus, and Harry Thorsby was girding him up for a regular dispute on the Friend’s objection to music, but he was prevented by all seconding Sylvanus’s quotation of Izaak Walton as extremely beautiful, and by Mr. Woodburn asking Tom Boddily what he had been doing lately, intending to draw out some of his country humour.
“I’ve been a little on my travels,” said Tom.
“Oh, indeed! where?”
“Well, I crossed an arm of the sea, as my companion, simple Simon Grainger, called it, and got into a country on the other side.”
“Ah! where did you cross this arm of the sea?”
“At a place called Sawley.”
“Sawley!” said several voices at once. “Why, that is on the Trent, Tom.”
“Well, I dare say it is; but Grainger, who never was five miles from home, insisted that it was an arm of the sea.”