his years, and little to be expected from one who had spoken just
before so unadvisedly and rashly, -

"Well do I know it, your worship! And verily do I believe that a
bone of one being shovelled among the soil upon his coffin would
forthwith quicken {8a} him. Sooth to say, there is ne'er a
buckhound in the county but he treateth him as a godchild, patting
him on the head, soothing his velvety ear between thumb and
forefinger, ejecting tick from tenement, calling him 'fine fellow,'
'noble lad,' and giving him his blessing, as one dearer to him than
a king's debt to a debtor, {8b} or a bastard to a dad of eighty.
This is the only kindness I ever heard of Master Silas toward his
fellow-creatures. Never hold me unjust, Sir Knight, to Master
Silas. Could I learn other good of him, I would freely say it; for
we do good by speaking it, and none is easier. Even bad men are not
bad men while they praise the just. Their first step backward is
more troublesome and wrenching to them than the first forward."

"In God's name, where did he gather all this?" whispered his worship
to the chaplain, by whose side I was sitting. "Why, he talks like a
man of forty-seven, or more!"

"I doubt his sincerity, sir!" replied the chaplain. "His words are
fairer now--"

"Devil choke him for them!" interjected he, with an undervoice.

"--and almost book-worthy; but out of place. What the scurvy cur
yelped against me, I forgive him as a Christian. Murrain upon such
varlet vermin! It is but of late years that dignities have come to