Galloping Dick
complacently regarded the roof of his coach. I confess that I was mightily taken with his coolness, for he must needs have a notion of my calling, and yet there he sat, with his smug face uncrinkled, and his great body heaving placidly, as though he had been this half-hour at ease before his fire. I had the fancy to thrust him a little closer and, springing from Calypso, I drew to the carriage and leaned my arms across the window. At this new proximity he appeared to start ever so little, and glanced at me from the edges of his eyes.
“There’s the rub,” says I. “For myself, I am naturally a man of peace, who can split a weasand with his sword upon occasion. I pursue a sound life and a simple calling.” The Bishop bowed in affable audience. “I am content with what goods the world, or chance, provides. If there be some who have brought evil accusations of greed upon me, why, what matters it, if a man’s conscience be right with his Maker? And you, my lord, will surely know the calamitous and miserable calumniations put upon our poor human nature?”
4
