“That's what I've been leading up to,” cried the carrier triumphantly. “The parson, like thousands of the rest of his cloth throughout the length and breadth o' the land, is content to preach pleasant things only, even as the false prophets of Israel prophesied fair things.” “And why shouldn't he be content to preach pleasant things, friend Jake, if so be that we be content to hear them? and for myself I would muchly listen to an hour of pleasant things--ay, rather than half an hour of unhappy ones.” “Ah, miller, what would you say if the doctor, who, when he saw your body suffering from a canker, gave you a sugar-plum and withheld his knife from cutting out the plague spot because you were apt to be squeamish at the sight of bloodletting!” There was an uneasy pause when the carrier had asked this rehearsed question. He asked it with a triumphant air, and, as if he felt it to be too large a question to be answered by the miller singlehanded, he, as it were, swept the whole company by a glance into his interrogation. The water-finder made a motion with his hands as if trying to smooth away an imaginary roughness in the air. There was a general feeling that the carrier had triumphed in his argument. He was one of those people who, by speaking in an air of triumph, succeed in making some people believe that they have triumphed. The farmer shook his head with the disinterestedness of an arbitrator. The smith continued looking into the empty mug from which he had just drunk. The silence lasted several seconds, and every second of course added to the triumph of the carrier. The man was not, however, adroit enough to perceive this. He was indiscreet enough to break the silence. When his eyes had gone round the company they returned to the miller. “Answer me that question, man!” he cried, and then everyone knew that he had not triumphed: the last word had not been said. “I'll answer you when you tell me if you wouldn't bear friendly feelings for a doctor who gives you a sugar plum instead of blooding you when he finds you reasonable well,” said the miller. “'Tis when a man feels healthiest that he stands most in need of blooding,” said Jake, not very readily and not very eagerly. “And so it is in the health of the soul. 'Let him that thinketh he stand take heed lest he fall.' Friends, is there one among us that can lay his hand on his heart and say that he believes that our parsons do their duty honestly and scripturally.” “It took you a deal o' time to lead us up to that point: you'd best ha' blurted it out at once,” remarked Hal Holmes. “Nay, we all knew that it was a-coming,” said the farmer. “Since Jake found himself as far away from home as Bristol city, he has never lost a chance of a dig at the parsons.” “I don't deny that my eyes were opened for the first time at Bristol,” said Jake. “Bristol was my Damascus, farmer.” The farmer gave a jerk to his head, for the carrier had laid undue emphasis upon the first syllable of the name.