Jake, the carrier, gave no sign of having heard the other speak.
“There's a many o' us in these parts as strong as in other parts, that be ready and willing to take things as they come,” said he; “to take the parson's preaching as they take the doctor's pills.”
“Ay, wi' a wry face,” acquiesced the blacksmith with a readiness that one could see the carrier thought meant no good.
He leant across the table once more until his face was close to the smith's, and said:
“That's where you be wrong, Hal Holmes. You know as well as the most knowledgable----”
“Meaning yourself, Jake?” said the smith drily.
“You know well that though you may make a wry face when gulching down the doctor's pill, ye dursn't so much as show a wrinkle or a crinkle on your face when Parson Rodney is in his pulpit,” replied the carrier with emphasis.
“'Cause why?” said the miller. “I'll tell ye truly--'tis because the parson gives us no bitter pills, only----”
“That's what I've been leading up to,” cried the carrier triumphantly. “The parson, like thousands of the rest of his cloth throughout the length and breadth o' the land, is content to preach pleasant things only, even as the false prophets of Israel prophesied fair things.”
“And why shouldn't he be content to preach pleasant things, friend Jake, if so be that we be content to hear them? and for myself I would muchly listen to an hour of pleasant things--ay, rather than half an hour of unhappy ones.”
“Ah, miller, what would you say if the doctor, who, when he saw your body suffering from a canker, gave you a sugar-plum and withheld his knife from cutting out the plague spot because you were apt to be squeamish at the sight of bloodletting!”
There was an uneasy pause when the carrier had asked this rehearsed question. He asked it with a triumphant air, and, as if he felt it to be too large a question to be answered by the miller singlehanded, he, as it were, swept the whole company by a glance into his interrogation.
The water-finder made a motion with his hands as if trying to smooth away an imaginary roughness in the air. There was a general feeling that the carrier had triumphed in his argument. He was one of those people who, by speaking in an air of triumph, succeed in making some people believe that they have triumphed. The farmer shook his head with the disinterestedness of an arbitrator. The smith continued looking into the empty mug from which he had just drunk. The silence lasted several seconds, and every second of course added to the triumph of the carrier. The man was not, however, adroit enough to perceive this. He was indiscreet enough to break the silence. When his eyes had gone round the company they returned to the miller.