“Really?” said I. “He professed to know something of you.”
“Against me, you mean? My dear Cole, don’t trouble to perjure yourself. I don’t mind, believe me. They’re easily shocked, these country clergy, and no doubt I’m a bugbear to ‘em. Yet, I could have sworn I’d never seen this one before. Let’s have another look.”
We were walking away together. We turned on the top of the bank. And there the old clergyman was planted on the moorside, and watching us intently from under his hollowed hands.
my duty to the public, but I certainly did no more. My reticence was rebuked in the papers that made the most of me, but would fain have made more. And yet I do not think that I was anything but docile with those who had a manifest right to question me; to the owners, and to other interested persons,