‘Why,’ he answered, ‘the Saxons of old were a round-faced, contented generation, with their ledgers in their hands for six days and their bibles on the seventh. If my father did but drink a cup of small beer more than his wont, or did break out upon provocation into any fond oath, as “Od’s niggers!” or “Heart alive!” he would mourn over it as though it were the seven deadly sins. Was this a man, think ye, in the ordinary course of nature to beget ten long lanky children, nine of whom might have been first cousins of Lucifer, and foster-brothers of Beelzebub?’ ‘It was hard upon him,’ remarked Reuben. ‘On him! Nay, the hardship was all with us. If he with his eyes open chose to marry the daughter of an incarnate devil like Will Spotterbridge, because she chanced to be powdered and patched to his liking, what reason hath he for complaint? It is we, who have the blood of this Hector of the taverns grafted upon our own good honest stream, who have most reason to lift up our voices.’ ‘Faith, by the same chain of reasoning,’ said Reuben, ‘one of my ancestors must have married a woman with a plaguy dry throat, for both my father and I are much troubled with the complaint.’ ‘You have assuredly inherited a plaguy pert tongue,’ growled Saxon. ‘From what I have told you, you will see that our whole life is a conflict between our natural Saxon virtue and the ungodly impulses of the Spotterbridge taint. That of which you have had cause to complain yesternight is but an example of the evil to which I am subjected.’ ‘And your brothers and sisters?’ I asked; ‘how hath this circumstance affected them?’ The road was bleak and long, so that the old soldier’s gossip was a welcome break to the tedium of the journey.