aredale. Life is pleasant enough to me; dull and full of heaviness
to you. No. To cross swords with such a man--to indulge his humour
unless upon extremity--would be weak indeed.'

For all that, he drew his sword as he walked along, and in an
absent humour ran his eye from hilt to point full twenty times. But
thoughtfulness begets wrinkles; remembering this, he soon put it up,
smoothed his contracted brow, hummed a gay tune with greater gaiety of
manner, and was his unruffled self again.

Chapter 30

A homely proverb recognises the existence of a troublesome class of
persons who, having an inch conceded them, will take an ell. Not to
quote the illustrious examples of those heroic scourges of mankind,
whose amiable path in life has been from birth to death through blood,
and fire, and ruin, and who would seem to have existed for no better
purpose than to teach mankind that as the absence of pain is pleasure,
so the earth, purged of their presence, may be deemed a blessed
place--not to quote such mighty instances, it will be sufficient to
refer to old John Willet.

Old John having long encroached a good standard inch, full measure, on
the liberty of Joe, and having snipped off a Flemish ell in the matter
of the parole, grew so despotic and so great, that his thirst for
conquest knew no bounds. The more young Joe submitted, the more absolute
old John became. The ell soon faded into nothing. Yards, furlongs, miles
arose; and on went old John in the pleasantest manner possible, trimming
off an exuberance in this place, shearing away some liberty of speech
or action in that, and conducting himself in his small way with as much
high mightiness and majesty, as the most glorious tyrant that ever had
his statue reared in the public ways, of ancient or of modern times.

As great men are urged on to the abuse of power (when they need urging,
which is not often), by their flatterers and dependents, so old John was
impelled to these exercises of authority by the applause and admiration
of his Maypole cronies, who, in the intervals of their nightly pipes and
pots, would shake their heads and say that Mr Willet was a father of the
good old English sort; that there were no new-fangled notions or modern
ways in him; that he put them in mind of what their fathers were when
they were boys; that there was no mistake about him; that it would be
well for the country if there were more like him, and more was the pity
that there were