, only by entering my door, the Mayor just now did what
all his cleverness could never have done--stopped a riot by a silly
brutal laugh--the chief magistrate taking shelter with Moll
Whiteaway! You can't get below that for fun, as the folk will take
it; and yet I say your father did good, for he saved me from the
worst. And to-day of his goodness he has not remembered my sins, but
treated me as though they were not; and today, as only a good man
can, he goes from my house, no man thinking to laugh except at his
simplicity, even though it were known that I kissed his hand.
God bless you, Sir John, and teach your son to be merciful to women!"

My father was ever so shy of his own kind actions that, when detected
by chance or painfully tracked out in one, he kept always a quotation
ready to justify what pure impulse had prompted. So now, as we
hurried across the deserted Market Strand to catch up with the other
three, he must needs brazen things out with the authority of Bishop
Jeremy Taylor.

"It was a maxim of that excellent divine," said he, "that Christian
censure should never be used to make a sinner desperate; for then he
either sinks under the burden or grows impudent and tramples upon it.
A charitable modest remedy, says he, preserves that which is virtue's
girdle-fear and blushing. Honour, dear lad, is the peculiar
counsellor of well-bred natures, and these are few; but almost in all
men you will find a certain modesty toward sin, and were I a king my
judges should be warned that their duty is to chasten; whereas by
punishing immoderately they can but effect the exact opposite."

We found our trio waiting for us on the far side of the square; and,
having fetched our horses and left an order at the inn for Billy
Priske on his return to mount and follow us, wended our way out of
the town. The streets on this side were deserted and mournful, the
shopkeepers having fastened their shutters for fear of the mob, of
whose present doings no sound reached us but a faint murmuring hubbub
borne on the afternoon air from the northward--that is, from the
direction of the Green Bank and the Penryn Road.

My father led the way at a foot's pace, and seemed to ride pondering,
for his chin was sunk on his chest and he had pulled his hat-brim
well over his eyes (but this may have been against the July sun).
After him tramped Mr. Fett in eager converse with the little
pawnbroker, now questioning him, now halting to regard hi