"Stuff, stuff!" cried Master Peasegood. "I won't sit and hear it. Don't talk of your Maker as if he were some petty, revengeful man like us, ready to visit every little weakness upon our heads with a misfortune, or to pay us for being good boys with a slice of bread and honey. Out on such religious ideas as that, Master Cobbe, and think of your God as one who is great and good. Bah! It aggravates me to hear and see people fall down and worship the ugly image they have set up in their hearts, one that every work of the Creator gives the lie to for its falsity and cruel wrong. Bear your burden, Jeremiah Cobbe, like a man. It is not in us to know the ins and outs of God's ways; and it is a wicked and impious sin for people to say this is a judgment, or that is a judgment, and to pretend to know what the All-Seeing thinks and does. You say you've been a wicked man, Master Cobbe." "Yes, yes," said the founder sadly; "and I have but one hope now, and that is that I may see my darling once again." "Amen to that," said Master Peasegood; "but, as to your wickedness, I wish every man was as wicked, and hot-tempered, and true-hearted, and generous, and frank, and industrious, and forgiving as thou art, Jeremiah Cobbe; and--Will you have that ale flagon filled again? Much talking makes me dry." The founder smiled, and called for Croftly's wife, who replenished the flagon, bobbed a curtsey to the parson, and re-entered the cottage. "I like you, Jeremiah Cobbe," continued Master Peasegood, after setting down the flagon with a satisfied sigh; "but don't be superstitious, man, like our sovereign master the King, who has written a book to hand down his wisdom to posterity." "Indeed!" said the founder, whose thoughts were evidently far away. "Yes, indeed," said Master Peasegood; "and it's all about witches and warlocks and the like. That piece of idiot spawn has gotten itself down here into Sir Thomas's hands; and, as I told thee, he was very near laying that foolish old woman Mother Goodhugh by the heels. Now she hates me like poison, because I laugh at her and tell the people she is a half-crazed old crone. Last time I saw her we quarrelled, for I told her she was a wretched old impostor, for cheating the poor people as she did. Ha! ha! ha! and then she defied and cursed me, and said she'd go to Father Brisdone and turn Roman Catholic. I told her to go, and he'd curse her for cursing, for it is his trade, and she has no right to handle such tools at all." "Poor weak woman," said the founder. "She is more to be pitied than blamed. I suppose she thinks in her heart that I am the cause of all her woes." "Ay, poor soul, but it's partly vanity, friend Cobbe. She likes to set up for a prophetess, a sort of diluted Deborah, and to make the people believe in her. There, you must go and see her. If I go to her, being the good man of the parish, she will have naught to say to me. Now, you being a wicked man, may have more influence than I."