Abner Gale's dreams, if he had any, would seem to have been of no such pleasant nature, for he was stirring with the dawn, breakfasting fiercely before sunrise, on Devonshire mutton and strong ale, cursing, notwithstanding his profession, each of his servants in turn for imputed shortcomings, from his cherry-cheeked parlour-maid to the man who fed the pigs. In and out the house, and through the precincts of the farm-yard, or "barton," as he called it, the master's eye was only less dreaded than his tongue, his tongue than his hand. Yet was he well served too, with the scrupulous obedience of fear.
He would fain have mounted his horse and ridden across the moor in the direction of Porlock again to-day, but even Abner Gale was compelled to pay some respect to the decencies of life, and even such a parish as his exacted a few hours' attention after an absence of weeks.
There were conditions to be written out for a wrestling-match between two rival champions; arrangements to be made for supplying the ringers with unlimited cider at their approaching feast; a badger recently drawn to visit; and some terrier-puppies just opening their eyes on this wicked world, to inspect.
Also, there was a child to be baptised, a matter that would keep, and a wench to be married, a matter that would _not_.
"For to-day," thought the Parson, "I have got my hands full; to-morrow I shall be free again, and it's strange if I fail to find out something more of your goings on, Mistress Nelly, and put a spoke in the wheel of that young spark down by the water-side, who seems to make himself so much at home!"
Though he never saw him before, though he had not the vaguest notion that John Garnet was the man he had sworn to hunt to death, some antagonistic instinct caused him to hate this man with a deadly hatred, scarcely to be accounted for, even by that jealousy which is proverbially cruel as the grave.
In no appropriate frame of mind, the Parson was about to don his frayed and dirty canonicals for administration of that matrimonial rite it would be unwise to delay, when his quick eye caught sight of a man riding on the moor, whose appearance caused him to cast aside his sacred vestments with an oath, and rush to the door, carrying a brimming jug of cider in his hand.