This entirely settled it. All our people took it up, and neglected not to tell one another. So that in less than three days' time, my name was spread far and wide for the praise, and the Scotchman's for the condemnation. I desired it not, as my friends well knew; but what use to beat to windward, against the breath of the whole of the world? Therefore I was not so obstinate as to set my opinion against the rest; but left it to Mr Macraw to rebut, if he could, his pusillanimity. As for Hezekiah Perkins, all his low creations fell upon the head from which they sprang. I spoke to our rector about his endeavour to harm a respectable Newton man--for you might call Macraw that by comparison, though he lived at Porthcawl, and was not respectable--and everybody was struck with my kindness in using such handsome terms of a rival. The result was that Perkins lost our church-clock, which paid him as well as a many two others, having been presented to the parish, and therefore not likely to go without pushing. For our rector was a peppery man, except when in the pulpit, and what he said to Hezekiah was exactly this. "What, Perkins! another great bill again! 'To repair of church-clock, seven-and-sixpence; to ten miles' travelling, at threepence per mile,'--and so on, and so on! Why, you never came further than my brother the Colonel's, the last three times you have charged for. Allow me to ask you a little question: to whom did you go for the keys of the church?" "As if I should want any keys of the church! There is no church-lock in the county that I cannot open, as soon as whistle." "Indeed! So you pick our lock. Do you ever open a church-door honestly, for the purpose of worshipping the Lord? I have kept my eye upon you, sir, because I hear that you have been reviling my parishioners. And I happen to know that you never either opened the lock of our church or picked it, for the last three times you have charged for. But one thing you have picked for many years, and that is the pocket of my ratepayers. Be off, sir--be off with your trumpery bill! We will have a good churchman to do our clock--a thoroughly honest seaman, and a regular church-goer." "Do you mean that big thief, Davy Llewellyn? Well, well, do as you please. But I will thank you to pay my bill first." "Thank me when you get it, sir. You may fall down on your canting knees, and thank the Lord for one thing." "What am I to thank the Lord for? For allowing you to cheat me thus?"