“‘Well, well,’ said Ayliffe, ‘it seems that I cannot say that which will suit you, Mr Oxley. Yet once more will I try, and with words that perhaps may reach the ear that mine cannot. Will you hear me?’ “‘Ay, I will hear, sure enough, friend Adam,’ said Mr Oxley, curiously; on which Ayliffe took down a large old brass-bound book, and, opening it on his lap, read with deliberate emphasis as follows:—— “‘Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. “‘And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. “‘And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.’ “When he had read these last words Ayliffe closed the Bible, and gazed at Mr Oxley in silence. For a moment the latter seemed somewhat staggered by what he saw and what he had heard; but at length—‘Oh, ho, Adam! do you make your Bible speak for you in business?’ said he, in a tone of rude jocularity. ‘Well, I shall wish you good day for some little while, it may be, and good luck to you here. It is somewhat of a bit of a place,’ he continued as he drew on his gloves, glancing, at the same time, contemptuously round the little room, ‘to set such store by; but be patient—be patient, Adam; there is one somewhat larger that will be ready for you by-and-bye——’ “This insulting allusion to the workhouse or the county jail old Ayliffe received in dignified silence. Not so his son, who, rising with ominous calmness from the chair on which he had for some time been sitting, as it were, on thorns, and silent only out of habitual deference to his father, approached Mr Oxley in two strides, seized him by the collar with the hand of a giant, and, before his astonished father could interpose, had dragged Mr Oxley to the doorway, near which he had been standing, and with a single jerk flung him out into the open air with a violence which sent him staggering several yards, till he fell down at full length on the ground. “‘Adam, Adam! what have you done!’ commenced his father, approaching his son with an astounded air.