ee that little blowin'-engine you talk so much about. Why do 'ee
always go about showin' your teeth?--metaforally, I mean, for you
haven't that many real ones left to make much show--why ain't you like
other folk sometimes? Shall I tell 'ee? 'Cause you wants to be young
when you be old, and rich when you be poor. That's why. That makes 'ee
miserable, and then you drinks to drown it. Take my advice, and act
like other folk. I'm nigh a score of years older than you, and take a
vast more pleasure in my life than when I was twenty. The neighbours
and their ways tickle me now, and my pipe's sweeter; and there's many a
foolish thing a young man does that age don't give an old one the chanst
to. You've spoke straight to me, and now I've spoke straight to you,
'cause I'm a straight-speaking man, and have no call to be afraid of
anyone--lord or fellow or organist. So take an old man's word: cheer
up, and wait on my lord, and get him to give 'ee a new organ."
"Bah!" said Mr Sharnall, who was far too used to Janaway's manner to
take umbrage or pay attention to it. "Bah! I hate all Blandamers. I
wish they were as dead and buried as dodos; and I'm not at all sure they
aren't. I'm not at all sure, mind you, that this strutting peacock has
any more right to the name of Blandamer than you or I have. I'm sick of
all this wealth. No one's thought anything of to-day, who can't build a
church or a museum or a hospital. `So long as thou doest well unto
_thyself_, men will speak good of thee.' If you've got the money,
you're everything that's wonderful, and if you haven't, you may go rot.
I wish all Blandamers were in their graves," he said, raising his thin
and strident voice till it rang again in the vault above, "and wrapped
up in their nebuly coat for a shroud. I should like to fling a stone
through their damned badge." And he pointed to the sea-green and silver
shield high up in the transept window. "Sunlight and moonlight, it is
always there. I used to like to come down and play here to the bats of
a full moon, till I saw _that_ would always look into the loft and haunt
me."
He thumped his pile of books down on a seat, and flung out of the
church. He had evidently been drinking, and the clerk made his escape
at the same time, being anxious not to be identified with sentiments
which had been so loudly enunciated that he feared those in the roof
might have overheard them.
Lord Blandamer wished Westray good-nig
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