Silas, -

"The first moment he ventureth to lift up his visage from the table,
hath Providence marked him miraculously. I have heard of black
malice. How many of our words have more in them than we think of!
Give a countryman a plough of silver, and he will plough with it all
the season, and never know its substance. 'T is thus with our daily
speech. What riches lie hidden in the vulgar tongue of the poorest
and most ignorant! What flowers of Paradise lie under our feet,
with their beauties and parts undistinguished and undiscerned, from
having been daily trodden on! O, sir, look you!--but let me cover
my eyes! Look at his lips! Gracious Heaven! they were not thus
when he entered. They are blacker now than Harry Tewe's bull-
bitch's!"

Master Silas did lift up his eyes in astonishment and wrath; and his
worship, Sir Thomas, did open his wider and wider, and cried by fits
and starts:-

"Gramercy! true enough! nay, afore God, too true by half! I never
saw the like! Who would believe it? I wish I were fairly rid of
this examination,--my hands washed clean thereof! Another time,--
anon! We have our quarterly sessions; we are many together. At
present I remand--"

And now, indeed, unless Sir Silas had taken his worship by the
sleeve, he would may-hap have remanded the lad. But Sir Silas,
still holding the sleeve and shaking it, said, hurriedly, -

"Let me entreat your worship to ponder. What black does the fellow