So speaking, he picked up the old man’s quarter staff and his cap, and gave them into his hands; at the same time taking a piece of silver out of his pocket, he tendered it with a look of good will--but the soldier would not take it. “It would do me no good,” said he: “I should have no luck with it, and could never relish the bread or beer it bought me.” “Then lay it out in dog’s meat, friend: thy poor cur will have forgotten my rude blow before thou hast forgiven my uncomfortable words:--you wo’n’t go to sleep in ill will with me, I hope.” “No, I shan’t do that,” rejoined the aged beggar,--“the good old parson of Cheddar taught me better than that,--and I minds what he said as if it were yesterday--God bless him!--church and king for ever, say I.--I wo’n’t have your money.” Surprized and startled by this strange and unexpected mention of his father, Cuthbert drew from the old man the whole story of his adventure at Cheddar, and his interview with Noble. He listened with deep emotion to the narrative, and recognised in all the circumstances the internal evidence of its truth, from its exact correspondence with the character of his father’s mind and heart, and those large and tolerant notions which he had always taught and carried out into practice. “I know that good parson well,” said Cuthbert, “and love him like a father.” “Do you indeed?--then I’ll take your money, and give you hearty thanks for it.--But I say, young master, if you knows the parson of Cheddar so well, it’s my belief your taking the wrong road:--a man can’t serve two masters--without you do call God and the king two; and he that serves God first, and king the next after, must always be right, as I have heard say from the time I was the height of this quarter staff.” Cuthbert gave him two pieces, and walked on in a humbled and in no satisfied frame of mind. His poor beast, like a patient packhorse, was quietly browsing by the road-side at no great distance, and Cuthbert drove it before him, not caring to mount again till the sun and air had dried his wet breeches and hose. The pettiness of the mortification which had moved him to such ungovernable anger was now lost in the most gloomy reflections on the sin of having so greatly dishonoured the commandments of God by cursing and swearing. Though naturally of a warm temper, he had never been at all addicted to the odious use of vulgar oaths, and for awhile he began to doubt the sincerity of his faith, and to imagine that the whole work of religion must be entered upon as a new thing. Again, the very strange circumstance of his father’s image being brought before him in a manner so unexpected, by a way-side beggar, and the lesson of charity, and the solemn monition to turn back from the party which he had chosen, conveyed by so lowly an instrument, perplexed his reason and staggered his resolution.