Presently the man within the man, the working partner in the firm, who never sleeps, never gets drunk, never loses his consciousness nor his identity, even when contusions or alcohol have numbed to insensibility his associate's weaker brain; the man who reproves us when we are wicked, who laughs at us when we are fools; to whom we make apologies for weakness, and excuses for crime, began to separate himself, as it were, from the _corporeal_ Parson Gale, and take him to task with half-indulgent cynicism, for the shortcomings of which both inner and outer man were fully conscious. Said the one to the other, "See now, I knew how it would be! You are at your old tricks again, Abner Gale, though you promised me yourself, only last week after Mounsey Revel, it should be the last time till Martinmas! You're not ashamed of it--not a bit! You're a good fellow, you say, and cannot refuse a cup when it's offered in good fellowship. All very well, my friend, but _respice finem_! There's Latin for you. Ah! you knew a bit of Latin once; I don't think it ever did you much good; but _keep your eye forward_! You can do that still when you ride to hounds across the moor. Look to the result. Already your hand has begun to shake; you can scarce button the knees of your breeches till you've had your morning draught, and you couldn't tie a fly to save your life. Already you know what it is to hear a buzzing in your ears, and feel a shooting pain in your joints. The last time you wrestled a fall with little Tremaine, he threw you easily with a cross-buttock, and he is but a ten-stone man. It won't do, Abner Gale--it can't go on! You'll be losing your nerve next, and what is to become of you then? Cassock, my boy, you'll hardly know your master when he's afraid to ride! but it hasn't come to that yet. Take a pull, my lad, before it's too late. You've seen many a man as sober as a judge, who is as happy as a king! It wouldn't be such a bad life, after all, to shoot, and hunt, and fish, where you know every hazel in the copse, every tuft on the heather, every pebble in the stream; to look after your parish, speak a kind word to your poor, and come back at night, hungry and happy, to meet a loving welcome in your own home. Pull yourself together, Abner Gale; for all your reddened face and grizzled hair, there's many an older man than _you_ goes wooing still. What more should a girl want than bone and muscle, a good heart, and an easy temper,--your temper is easy enough when you're not put out,--a joint at the kitchen fire, and a slate roof over her head? So why should the likeliest lass in all the West Country say nay? Abner Gale! Abner Gale! there was one chance left, and may-be you lost it to-day, getting drunk with a parcel of tinkers and gipsies on the open moor."