With these words a person entered,—a middle-aged man, in black. He walked straight across the kitchen to an inner door, opened it, inclined his head forward, and stood listening. There was something to listen to, for the noise above was just then louder than ever.
“Hey!” he ejaculated to himself; then, turning to Mr. Gale,—“Have you often this sort of work?”
Mr. Gale had been a churchwarden, and was indulgent to the clergy.
“They’re young, you know, sir,—they’re young,” said he, deprecatingly.
“Young! They want caning. Bad boys!—bad boys! and if you were a Dissenter, John Gale, instead of being a good Churchman, they’d do the like;—they’d expose themselves: but I’ll”
By way of finish to this sentence, he passed through the inner door, drew it after him, and mounted the stair. Again he listened a few minutes when he arrived at the upper room. Making entrance without warning, he stood before the curates.
And they were silent; they were transfixed; and so was the invader. He,—a personage short of stature, but straight of port, and bearing on broad shoulders a hawk’s head, beak, and eye, the whole surmounted by a Rheoboam, or shovel-hat, which he did not seem to think it necessary to lift or remove before the presence in which he then stood,—he folded his arms on his chest and surveyed his young friends—if friends they were—much at his leisure.
