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"If he has," said I, "he has done it unwittingly; I never heard before
that he was a favourer of the popish delusion."

"Only in theory," said the man in black. "Trust any of the clan
Mac-Sycophant for interfering openly and boldly in favour of any cause on
which the sun does not shine benignantly. Popery is at present, as you
say, suing for grace in these regions _in forma pauperis_; but let
royalty once take it up, let old gouty George once patronize it, and I
would consent to drink puddle-water, if the very next time the canny Scot
was admitted to the royal symposium he did not say, 'By my faith, yere
Majesty, I have always thought, at the bottom of my heart, that popery,
as ill scrapit tongues ca' it, was a very grand religion; I shall be
proud to follow your Majesty's example in adopting it.'"

"I doubt not," said I, "that both gouty George and his devoted servant
will be mouldering in their tombs long before Royalty in England thinks
about adopting popery."

"We can wait," said the man in black, "in these days of rampant
gentility, there will be no want of Kings nor of Scots about them."

"But not Walters," said I.

"Our work has been already tolerably well done by one," said the man in
black; "but if we wanted literature we should never lack in these regions
hosts of literary men of some kind or other to eulogize us, provided our
religion were in the fashion, and our popish nobles choose, and they
always do our bidding, to admit the canaille to their tables, their
kitchen tables. As for literature in general," said he, "the Santa Sede
is not particularly partial to it, it may be employed both ways. In
Italy, in particular, it has discovered that literary men are not always
disposed to be lick-spittles."

"For example, Dante," said I.

"Yes," said the man in black. "A dangerous personage; that poem of his
cuts both ways; and then there was Pulci, that Morgante of his cuts both
ways, or rather one way, and that sheer against us; and then there was
Aertino, who dealt so hard with the poveri frati; all writers, at least
Italian ones, are not lick-spittles. And then in Spain,--'tis true, Lope
de Vega and Calderon were most inordinate lick-spittles; the Principe
Constante of the last is a curiosity in its way; and then the Mary Stuart
of Lope; I think I shall recommend the perusal of that work to the
Birmingham ironworker's daughter; she has been lately thinking of adding
'a slight knowledge of the magneeficent language of the Peninsula' to the
rest of her accomplishments, he! he! he! but then there was Cervantes,
starving, but straight; he deals us some hard knocks in that second part
of his Quixote; then there was some of the writers of the picaresque
novels. No, all literary men are not lick-spittles, whether in Italy or
Spain, or, indeed, upon the Continent; it is only in England that all--"

"Come," said I, "mind what you are about to say of English literary men."

"Why should I mind?" said the man in black, "there are no literary men
here. I have heard of literary men living in garrets, but not in
dingles, whatever philologists may do; I may, therefore, speak out
freely. It is only in England that literary men are invariably
lickspittles; on which account, perhaps, they are so despised, even by
those who benefit by their dirty services. Look at your fashionable
novel writers, he! he! and above all at your newspaper editors, ho! ho!"

"You will, of course, except the editors of the --- from your censure of
the last class?" said I.

"Them!" said the man in black; "why, they might serve as models in the
dirty trade to all the rest who practise it. See how they bepraise their
patrons, the grand Whig nobility, who hope, by raising the cry of
liberalism, and by putting themselves at the head of the populace, to
come into power shortly. I don't wish to be hard, at present, upon those
Whigs," he continued, "for they are playing our game; but a time will
come when, not wanting them, we will kick them to a considerable
distance: and then, when toleration is no longer the cry, and the Whigs
are no longer backed by the populace, see whether the editors of the ---
will stand by them; they will prove themselves as expert lick-spittles of
despotism as of liberalism. Don't think they will always bespatter the
Tories and Austria."

"Well," said I, "I am sorry to find that you entertain so low an opinion
of the spirit of English literary men; we will now return, if you please,
to the subject of the middle classes; I think your strictures upon them
in general are rather too sweeping--they are not altogether the foolish
people you have described. Look, for example, at that very powerful and
numerous body the Dissenters, the descendants of those sturdy Patriots
who hurled Charles the Simple from his throne."

"There are some sturdy fellows amongst them, I do not deny," said the man
in black, "especially amongst the preachers, clever withal--two or three
of that class nearly drove Mr. Platitude mad, as perhaps you are aware,
but they are not very numerous; and the old sturdy sort of preachers are
fast dropping off, and, as we observe with pleasure, are generally
succeeded by frothy coxcombs, whom it would not be very difficult to gain
over. But what we most rely upon as an instrument to bring the
Dissenters over to us is the mania for gentility, which amongst them has
of late become as great, and more ridiculous, than amongst the middle
classes belonging to the Church of England. All the plain and simple
fashions of their forefathers they are either about to abandon, or have
already done so. Look at the most part of their chapels, no longer
modest brick edifices, situated in quiet and retired streets, but lunatic-
looking erections, in what the simpletons call the modern Gothic taste,
of Portland-stone, with a cross upon the top, and the site generally the
most conspicuous that can be found, and look at the manner in which they
educate their children, I mean those that are wealthy. They do not even
wish them to be Dissenters, 'the sweet dears shall enjoy the advantages
of good society, of which their parents were debarred.' So the girls are
sent to tip-top boarding schools, where amongst other trash they read
'Rokeby,' and are taught to sing snatches from that high-flying ditty,
the 'Cavalier ---'

'Would you match the base Skippon, and Massey, and Brown
With the barons of England, who fight for the crown?'--

he! he! their own names. Whilst the lads are sent to those hot-beds of
pride and folly--colleges, whence they return with a greater contempt for
everything 'low,' and especially for their own pedigree, than they went
with. I tell you, friend, the children of Dissenters, if not their
parents, are going over to the Church, as you call it, and the Church is
going over to Rome."

"I do not see the justice of that latter assertion at all," said I; "some
of the Dissenters' children may be coming over to the Church of England,
and yet the Church of England be very far from going over to Rome."

"In the high road for it, I assure you," said the man in black, "part of
it is going to abandon, the rest to lose their prerogative, and when a
Church no longer retains its prerogative, it speedily loses its own
respect, and that of others."

"Well," said I, "if the higher classes have all the vices and follies
which you represent, on which point I can say nothing, as I have never
mixed with them; and even supposing the middle classes are the foolish
beings you would fain make them, and which I do not believe them as a
body to be, you would still find some resistance amongst the lower
classes, I have a considerable respect for their good sense and
independence of character; but pray let me hear your opinion of them."

"As for the lower classes," said the man in black, "I believe them to be
the most brutal wretches in the world, the most addicted to foul feeding,
foul language, and foul vices of every kind; wretches who have neither
love for country, religion, nor anything save their own vile selves. You
surely do not think that they would oppose a change of religion? why,
there is not one of them but would hurrah for the Pope, or Mahomet, for
the sake of a hearty gorge and a drunken bout, like those which they are
treated with at election contests."

"Has your church any followers amongst them?" said I.

"Wherever there happens to be a Romish family of considerable
possessions," said the man in black, "our church is sure to have
followers of the lower class, who have come over in the hope of getting
something in the shape of dole or donation. As, however, the Romish is
not yet the dominant religion, and the clergy of the English
establishment have some patronage to bestow, the churches are not quite
deserted by the lower classes; yet were the Romish to become the
established religion, they would, to a certainty, all go over to it; you
can scarcely imagine what a self-interested set they are--for example,
the landlord of that public-house in which I first met you, having lost a
sum of money upon a cock-fight, and his affairs in consequence being in a
bad condition, is on the eve of coming over to us, in the hope that two
old Popish females of property, whom, I confess, will advance a sum of
money to set him up again in the world."

"And what could have put such an idea into the poor fellow's head?" said
I.

"Oh! he and I have had some conversation upon the state of his affairs,"
said the man in black; "I think he might make a rather useful convert in
these parts, provided things take a certain turn, as they doubtless will.
It is no bad thing to have a fighting fellow, who keeps a public-house,
belonging to one's religion. He has been occasionally employed as a
bully at elections by the Tory party, and he may serve us in the same
capacity. The fellow comes of a good stock; I heard him say that his
father headed the high Church mob, who sacked and burnt Priestley's house
at Birmingham towards the end of the last century."

"A disgraceful affair," said I.

"What do you mean by a disgraceful affair?" said the man in black. "I
assure you that nothing has occurred for the last fifty years which has
given the high-Church party so much credit in the eyes of Rome as that;
we did not imagine that the fellows had so much energy. Had they
followed up that affair, by twenty others of a similar kind, they would
by this time have had everything in their own power; but they did not,
and, as a necessary consequence, they are reduced to almost nothing."

"I suppose," said I, "that your church would have acted very differently
in its place."

"It has always done so," said the man in black, coolly sipping. "Our
church has always armed the brute-population against the genius and
intellect of a country, provided that same intellect and genius were not
willing to become its instruments and eulogists; and provided we once
obtain a firm hold here again, we would not fail to do so. We would
occasionally stuff the beastly rabble with horseflesh and bitter ale, and
then halloo them on against all those who were obnoxious to us."

"Horseflesh and bitter ale!" I replied.

"Yes," said the man in black; "horseflesh and bitter ale, the favourite
delicacies of their Saxon ancestors, who were always ready to do our
bidding after a liberal allowance of such cheer. There is a tradition in
our church, that before the Northumbrian rabble, at the instigation of
Austin, attacked and massacred the presbyterian monks of Bangor, they had
been allowed a good gorge of horseflesh and bitter ale. He! he! he!"
continued the man in black, "what a fine spectacle to see such a mob,
headed by a fellow like our friend, the landlord, sack the house of
another Priestley!"

"Then you don't deny that we have had a Priestley," said I, "and admit
the possibility of our having another? You were lately observing that
all English literary men were sycophants?"

"Lick-spittles," said the man in black; "yes, I admit that you have had a
Priestley, but he was a Dissenter of the old class; you have had him, and
perhaps may have another."

"Perhaps we may," said I. "But with respect to the lower classes, have
you mixed much with them?"

"I have mixed with all classes," said the man in black, "and with the
lower not less than the upper and middle, they are much as I have
described them; and of the three, the lower are the worst. I never knew
one of them that possessed the slightest principle, no, not--. It is
true, there was one fellow whom I once met, who--; but it is a long
story, and the affair happened abroad."

"I ought to know something of the English people," he continued, after a
moment's pause; "I have been many years amongst them labouring in the
cause of the Church."

"Your See must have had great confidence in your powers, when it selected
you to labour for it in these parts." Said I.

"They chose me," said the man in black, "principally because being of
British extraction and education, I could speak the English language and
bear a glass of something strong. It is the opinion of my See, that it
would hardly do to send a missionary into a country like this who is not
well versed in English; a country where they think, so far from
understanding any language besides his own, scarcely one individual in
ten speaks his own intelligibly, or an ascetic person where, as they say,
high and low, male and female, are, at some period of their lives, fond
of a renovating glass as it is styled, in other words, of tippling."

"Your See appears to entertain a very strange opinion of the English,"
said I.

"Not altogether an unjust one," said the man in black, lifting the glass
to his mouth.

"Well," said I, "it is certainly very kind on its part to wish to bring
back such a set of beings beneath its wing."

"Why, as to the kindness of my See," said the man in black, "I have not
much to say; my See has generally in what it does a tolerably good
motive; these heretics possess in plenty what my See has a great
hankering for, and can turn to a good account--money!"

"The founder of the Christian religion cared nothing for money," said I.

"What have we to do with what the founder of the Christian religion cared
for?" said the man in black. "How could our temples be built, and our
priests supported without money? But you are unwise to reproach us with
a desire of obtaining money; you forget that your own church, if the
Church of England be your own church, as I suppose it is, from the
willingness which you displayed in the public-house to fight for it, is
equally avaricious; look at your greedy Bishops, and your corpulent
Rectors! do they imitate Christ in his disregard for money? You might as
well tell me that they imitate Christ in His meekness and humility."

"Well," said I, "whatever their faults may be, you can't say that they go
to Rome for money."

The man in black made no direct answer, but appeared by the motion of his
lips to be repeating something to himself.

"I see your glass is again empty," said I; "perhaps you will replenish
it?"

The man in black arose from his chair, adjusted his habiliments which
were rather in disorder, and placed upon his head his hat, which he had
laid aside, then, looking at me, who was still lying on the ground, he
said--"I might, perhaps, take another glass, though I believe I have had
quite as much as I can well bear; but I do not wish to hear you utter
anything more this evening after that last observation of yours--it is
quite original; I will meditate upon it on my pillow this night after
having said an ave and a pater--go to Rome for money!" He then made
Belle a low bow, slightly motioned to me with his hand as if bidding
farewell, and then left the dingle with rather uneven steps.

"Go to Rome for money," I heard him say as he ascended the winding path,
"he! he! he! Go to Rome for money, ho! ho! ho!"

CHAPTER XCV.

Wooded Retreat--Fresh Shoes--Wood Fire--Ash, when Green--Queen of
China--Cleverest People--Declensions--Armenian--Thunder--Deep Olive--What
Do You Mean?--Koul Adonai--The Thick Bushes--Wood Pigeon--Old Goethe.

Nearly three days elapsed without anything of particular moment
occurring. Belle drove the little cart containing her merchandise about
the neighbourhood, returning to the dingle towards the evening. As for
myself, I kept within my wooded retreat, working during the periods of
her absence leisurely at my forge. Having observed that the quadruped
which my companion drove was as much in need of shoes as my own had been
some time previously, I had determined to provide it with a set, and
during the aforesaid periods occupied myself in preparing them. As I was
employed three mornings and afternoons about them, I am sure that the
reader will agree that I worked leisurely, or rather lazily. On the
third day Belle arrived, somewhat later than usual; I was lying on my
back at the bottom of the dingle, employed in tossing up the shoes, which
I had produced, and catching them as they fell, some being always in the
air mounting or descending, somewhat after the fashion of the waters of a
fountain.

"Why have you been absent so long?" said I to Belle, "it must be long
past four by the day."

"I have been almost killed by the heat," said Belle; "I was never out in
a more sultry day--the poor donkey, too, could scarcely move along."

"He shall have fresh shoes," said I, continuing my exercise, "here they
are, quite ready; to-morrow I will tack them on."

"And why are you playing with them in that manner?" said Belle.

"Partly in triumph at having made them, and partly to show that I can do
something besides making them; it is not every one who, after having made
a set of horse-shoes, can keep them going up and down in the air, without
letting one fall."

"One has now fallen on your chin," said Belle.

"And another on my cheek," said I, getting up, "it is time to discontinue
the game, for the last shoe drew blood."

Belle went to her own little encampment; and as for myself, after having
flung the donkey's shoes into my tent, I put some fresh wood on the fire,
which was nearly out, and hung the kettle over it. I then issued forth
from the dingle, and strolled round the wood that surrounded it; for a
long time I was busied in meditation, looking at the ground, striking
with my foot, half unconsciously, the tufts of grass and thistles that I
met in my way. After some time, I lifted up my eyes to the sky, at first
vacantly, and then with more attention, turning my head in all directions
for a minute or two; after which I returned to the dingle. Isopel was
seated near the fire, over which the kettle was now hung; she had changed
her dress--no signs of the dust and fatigue of her late excursion
remained; she had just added to the fire a small billet of wood, two or
three of which I had left beside it; the fire cracked, and a sweet odour
filled the dingle.

"I am fond of sitting by a wood fire," said Belle, "when abroad, whether
it be hot or cold; I love to see the flames dart out of the wood; but
what kind is this, and where did you get it?"

"It is ash," said I, "green ash. Somewhat less than a week ago, whilst I
was wandering along the road by the side of a wood, I came to a place
where some peasants were engaged in cutting up and clearing away a
confused mass of fallen timber: a mighty aged oak had given way the night
before, and in its fall had shivered some smaller trees; the upper part
of the oak, and the fragments of the rest, lay across the road. I
purchased, for a trifle, a bundle or two, and the wood on the fire is
part of it--ash, green ash."

"That makes good the old rhyme," said Belle, "which I have heard sung by
the old women in the great house:--

'Ash, when green,
Is fire for a queen.'"

"And on fairer form of queen, ash fire never shone," said I, "than on
thine, O beauteous queen of the dingle."

"I am half disposed to be angry with you, young man," said Belle.

"And why not entirely?" said I.

Belle made no reply.

"Shall I tell you?" I demanded. "You had no objection to the first part
of the speech, but you did not like being called queen of the dingle.
Well, if I had the power, I would make you queen of something better than
the dingle--Queen of China. Come, let us have tea."

"Something less would content me," said Belle, sighing, as she rose to
prepare our evening meal.

So we took tea together, Belle and I. "How delicious tea is after a hot
summer's day, and a long walk," said she.

"I dare say it is most refreshing then," said I; "but I have heard people
say that they most enjoy it on a cold winter's night, when the kettle is
hissing on the fire, and their children playing on the hearth."

Belle sighed. "Where does tea come from?" she presently demanded.

"From China," said I; "I just now mentioned it, and the mention of it put
me in mind of tea."

"What kind of country is China?"

"I know very little about it; all I know is, that it is a very large
country far to the East, but scarcely large enough to contain its
inhabitants, who are so numerous, that though China does not cover one-
ninth part of the world, its inhabitants amount to one-third of the
population of the world."

"And do they talk as we do?"

"O no! I know nothing of their language; but I have heard that it is
quite different from all others, and so difficult that none but the
cleverest people amongst foreigners can master it, on which account,
perhaps, only the French pretend to know anything about it."

"Are the French so very clever, then?" said Belle.

"They say there are no people like them, at least in Europe. But talking
of Chinese reminds me that I have not for some time past given you a
lesson in Armenian. The word for tea in Armenian is--by-the-bye, what is
the Armenian word for tea?"

"That's your affair, not mine," said Belle; "it seems hard that the
master should ask the scholar."

"Well," said I, "whatever the word may be in Armenian, it is a noun; and
as we have never yet declined an Armenian noun together, we may as well
take this opportunity of declining one. Belle, there are ten declensions
in Armenian!"

"What's a declension?"

"The way of declining a noun."

"Then, in the civilest way imaginable, I decline the noun. Is that a
declension?"

"You should never play on words; to do so is low, vulgar, smelling of the
pothouse, the workhouse. Belle, I insist on your declining an Armenian
noun."

"I have done so already," said Belle.

"If you go on in this way," said I, "I shall decline taking any more tea
with you. Will you decline an Armenian noun?"

"I don't like the language," said Belle. "If you must teach me
languages, why not teach me French or Chinese?"

"I know nothing of Chinese; and as for French, none but a Frenchman is
clever enough to speak it--to say nothing of teaching; no, we will stick
to Armenian, unless, indeed, you would prefer Welsh!"

"Welsh, I have heard, is vulgar," said Belle; "so, if I must learn one of
the two, I will prefer Armenian, which I never heard of till you
mentioned it to me; though of the two, I really think Welsh sounds best."

"The Armenian noun," said I, "which I propose for your declension this
night, is --- which signifieth Master."

"I neither like the word nor the sound," said Belle.

"I can't help that," said I; "it is the word I choose: Master, with all
its variations, being the first noun, the sound of which I would have you
learn from my lips. Come, let us begin--

"A master. Of a master, etc. Repeat--"

"I am not much used to say the word," said Belle, "but to oblige you I
will decline it as you wish;" and thereupon Belle declined Master in
Armenian.

"You have declined the noun very well," said I; "that is in the singular
number; we will now go to the plural."

"What is the plural?" said Belle.

"That which implies more than one, for example, Masters; you shall now go
through Masters in Armenian."

"Never," said Belle, "never; it is bad to have one master, but more I
would never bear, whether in Armenian or English."

"You do not understand," said I; "I merely want you to decline Masters in
Armenian."

"I do decline them; I will have nothing to do with them, nor with master
either; I was wrong to--What sound is that?"

"I did not hear it, but I dare say it is thunder; in Armenian--"

"Never mind what it is in Armenian; but why do you think it is thunder?"

"Ere I returned from my stroll, I looked up into the heavens, and by
their appearance I judged that a storm was nigh at hand."

"And why did you not tell me so?"

"You never asked me about the state of the atmosphere, and I am not in
the habit of giving my opinion to people on any subject, unless
questioned. But, setting that aside, can you blame me for not troubling
you with forebodings about storm and tempest, which might have prevented
the pleasure you promised yourself in drinking tea, or perhaps a lesson
in Armenian, though you pretend to dislike the latter."

"My dislike is not pretended," said Belle; "I hate the sound of it, but I
love my tea, and it was kind of you not to wish to cast a cloud over my
little pleasures; the thunder came quite time enough to interrupt it
without being anticipated--there is another peal--I will clear away, and
see that my tent is in a condition to resist the storm, and I think you
had better bestir yourself."