even among substantial
professional seniors, had for the general mind all the superior power
of mystery over fact. Everybody liked better to conjecture how the
thing was, than simply to know it; for conjecture soon became more
confident than knowledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the
incompatible. Even the more definite scandal concerning Bulstrode's
earlier life was, for some minds, melted into the mass of mystery, as
so much lively metal to be poured out in dialogue, and to take such
fantastic shapes as heaven pleased.

This was the tone of thought chiefly sanctioned by Mrs. Dollop, the
spirited landlady of the Tankard in Slaughter Lane, who had often to
resist the shallow pragmatism of customers disposed to think that their
reports from the outer world were of equal force with what had "come
up" in her mind. How it had been brought to her she didn't know, but
it was there before her as if it had been "scored with the chalk on the
chimney-board--" as Bulstrode should say, "his inside was _that black_
as if the hairs of his head knowed the thoughts of his heart, he'd tear
'em up by the roots."

"That's odd," said Mr. Limp, a meditative shoemaker, with weak eyes and
a piping voice. "Why, I read in the 'Trumpet' that was what the Duke
of Wellington said when he turned his coat and went over to the Romans."

"Very like," said Mrs. Dollop. "If one raskill said it, it's more
reason why another should. But hypo_crite_ as he's been, and holding
things with that high hand, as there was no parson i' the country good
enough for him, he was forced to take Old Harry into his counsel, and
Old Harry's been too many for him."

"Ay, ay, he's a 'complice you can't send out o' the country," said Mr.
Crabbe, the glazier, who gathered much news and groped among it dimly.
"But by what I can make out, there's them says Bulstrode was for
running away, for fear o' being found out, before now."

"He'll be drove away, whether or no," said Mr. Dill, the barber, who
had just dropped in. "I shaved Fletcher, Hawley's clerk, this
morning--he's got a bad finger--and he says they're all of one mind to
get rid of Bulstrode. Mr. Thesiger is turned against him, and wants
him out o' the parish. And there's gentlemen in this town says they'd
as soon dine with a fellow from the hulks. 'And a deal sooner I
would,' says Fletcher; 'for what's more against one's stomach than a
man coming and making himself bad company with his religion,