“It is an insinuation as false as it is base to suspect and utter it: try me not farther, or you will make me forget my sacred calling.” “You are not likely to do that by what I hear of your doings at Old Beech. You preach like a Puritan already: it were a pity to lose a fat rectory if the Parliament get uppermost.” The mean and cruel turn, which Sir Charles thus gave to his malicious charge, so startled and affected Juxon, who had always been both honest and earnest in his pulpit, that he paused in his reply,--and was sending up a swift ejaculation to Heaven for the grace of patience, when Sir Oliver angrily interposed. “Zounds and thunder, Sir Charles, you might have remembered, among the doings of Friend Juxon, that he has furnished right stout troopers from his own purse, and that every man in his parish, capable of bearing arms, who can be spared from home, has been sent off already to carry a pike for King Charles. I think the devil is in thee, or that yellow Margery hath crossed thy path this morning.” The mention of yellow Margery was never pleasant to Sir Charles, and a scowl came over his brow at the sound of her name; but he answered in a dogged and sullen manner,--“Ay, that is all very well: it is good to have two strings to one’s bow. I suppose, Master Juxon will not deny that that canting fanatic, Cuthbert Noble, is his friend. My steward, who came last night from Hertfordshire, saw the vile hypocrite, with tuck and partizan, on guard in the market-place at St. Albans. Your grave tutor is a lieutenant of pikemen. I hope I shall ride over the rascal some fine day.” “A fanatic he may be--a hypocrite he cannot be; and you say truly that I am his friend; but I will not trust myself with another word--I must return home. Sir Charles, from henceforth I shall look on you as a stranger; and did it become my cloth I would chastise you.” “Insolent priest! thy cloth is thy protection,” said Sir Charles, advancing with a lifted hunting whip, as if to strike Juxon. “You need not come between us, Sir Oliver,” said Juxon, with a look of quiet scorn: “in spite of the anger in his heart, he knows when to be prudent.” “Odd’s life!” said the old knight, “I will have no more ill blood at Milverton:--look you, go your ways, both of you, and sleep over it, and come here again to-morrow, and let us make all up. You are both right, and both wrong--faults on both sides; that is always the story of a quarrel.” With these words he took Juxon by the hand and shook it kindly, adding, “There go, man, get your horse; you’ll be yourself again before you reach home. Here, Arthur, boy, go with him, and call Richard to saddle his hobby.--I’ll make Sir Charles listen to reason.”