’Ahem!’ said the Rector. ’I have been in your midst, I may say, as your spiritual pastor, set—set—ahem!—under you these forty years, and, I thank heaven, never has there been a single discord—ahem!—between me and my parishioners. If I have not always been able to agree with them—ahem!—I have taken care not to disagree with them! I mean—I mean, if they have had their opinions, I have not always seen my way to accepting them, because I have studiously avoided having any opinions at all. Now—ahem!—I see a slight jar between my nearest and dearest neighbours,’ he looked at Langford and Nanspian. ’And I long to see it ended.’ (’Hear, hear, hear!’) ’I express the unanimous opinion of the entire parish. On this one point, after forty opinionless years, I venture—ahem!—to have an opinion, a decided opinion, an emphatic opinion’—(immense applause)—’I call upon you all, my Christian brethren, to unite with me in healing this unseemly quarrel—I mean this quarrel: the unseemliness is in the quarrel, not in the quarrellers.’ Langford drank his gin-and-water not knowing what he did, and his hand shook. Nanspian emptied his glass. Both looked at the door: there was no escape that way, the back of burly Farmer Brendon filled it. All eyes were on them. ’Come now,’ said Piper, ’what is the sense of this quarrel? Are you women to behave in this unreasonable manner? You, both of you, look the worse for the squabble. What is it all about?’ ’Upon my word, I do not know,’ said Nanspian. ’I never did Langford a hurt in my life. Why did he insult me?’ ’I insult him!’ repeated Taverner. ’Heaven knows I bore him no ill-will, but when he dared to address me as——’ ’I swear by——’ burst in Hillary. ’Do not swear!’ said Langford, hastily. ’Let your yea be yea.’ The ice was broken between them. One had addressed the other. Now they looked each other full in the face. Hillary’s eyes moistened. Taverner’s mouth twitched. ’Why did you employ offensive language towards me?’ asked Hillary. ’I!’ exclaimed Taverner; ’no, it was you who addressed me in words I could not endure.’ The critical moment had arrived. In another moment they would clasp hands, and be reconciled for life. No one spoke, all watched the two men eagerly. ’Well, Taverner,’ said Hillary, ’you know I am a hot man, and my words fly from my tongue before I have cooled them.’ ’I dare say I may have said what I never meant. Most certainly what I did say was not to be taken seriously.’ ’But,’ put in Parson Robbins, ’what _was_ said?’ ’Judge all,’ exclaimed Taverner. ’I was angry, and I called Hillary Nanspian a long-tailed Cornish ourang-outang.’ The moment the words were uttered, he was aware that he had made a mistake. The insult was repeated in the most public possible manner. If the words spoken in private had exasperated Hillary, how much more so now!