"Perhaps," said the man of law, interrupting the baronet in the midst, "Perhaps Mr. Dixwell thought, Sir Philip, that you came here to speak with me on the business of the Honorable Mrs. Hazleton. She told me she would consult you, and I can explain the whole matter to you."
But the clergyman instantly declared that he meant nothing of the kind; and at the same moment Sir Philip Hastings said, "I beg you will not, sir. Mrs. Hazleton will explain what she thinks proper to me, herself. I desire no previous information, as I am now on my way to her. Why my good friend here should suppose I came by appointment, I cannot tell. However, I did not; and it does not matter. I only wish, Mr. Dixwell, to say, that I hear the old woman Danley is ill and dying. She is a papist, and the foolish people about fancy she is a witch. Little help or comfort will she obtain from them, even if they do not injure or insult her. As I shall be absent all night, and perhaps all to-morrow, I will call at her cottage as I ride over to Mrs. Hazleton's and inquire into her wants. I will put down on paper, and leave there, what I wish my people to do for her; but there is one thing which I must request you to do, namely, to take every means, by exhortation and remonstrance, to prevent the ignorant peasantry from troubling this poor creature's death-bed. Her sad errors in matters of faith should only at such a moment make us feel the greater compassion for her."
Mr. Dixwell thought differently, for though a good man, he was a fanatic. He did not indeed venture to think of disobeying the injunction of the great man of the parish--the man who now held both the Hastings and the Marshal property; but he would fain have detained Sir Philip to explain and make clear to him the position--as clear as a demonstration in Euclid to his own mind--that all Roman Catholics ought to be, at the very least, banished from the country for ever.
But Sir Philip Hastings was not inclined to listen, and although the good man began the argument in a solemn tone, his visitor, falling into a fit of thought, walked slowly out of the room, along the passage, through the door, and mounted his horse, without effectually hearing one word, though they were many which Mr. Dixwell showered upon him as he followed.