“Now that’s out-and-out o’er-dainty of Tom Boddily,” said Tim Bentley, the landlord. “It does very well for gentlemen to have such tickle stomachs; but for poor folks like Tom, zounds, it’s a robbing of his family.” “Oh, Tom’s lived so much among gentry,” said Job Latter, “that I reckon he thinks he’s e’en one.” Job had received a handsome present from Sir Henry Clavering for his able assistance in capturing Scammel; and it seemed rather a reflection on him by Tom. “Tom,” said he, “is getting as ginger as th’ owd mester here at th’ Grange. I seed him and Samul Davis going to hang th’ owd tarrier t’other morning in th’ orchard. Th’ owd dog was blind and deaf, and continyally under everybody’s feet. Well, they hung him up, and th’ rope broke, and down he came, and began howling as if he did na like it. But th’ owd mester picks him up, and strokes him, and says, ‘So, so then, poor old fellow!’ as if he were only going to crop his ears or so, while Samul Davis ties him up again. They’ve such fine feelings, gentry han; but Tom is na gentry just yet.” “And why should na we lay hold of and put an end to men as would put an end to us for a trifle?” said farmer Chaffers. “Does na everything put an end to anything as it can, if it can feed on’t? It’s natur, and nothing else, and God wills it.” “Hold a bit there, Mr. Chaffers,” said Crusoe. “You must read your Bible better than that. It was not God who made things so, but it was man and the devil who did it at the fall. God has sent us Christianity, and that is opposed to all cruelty in man and beast.” Hereupon Farmer Chaffers fell into a stout argument with Crusoe, and there ensued a long and violent debate, which ended, as many a debate in a more illustrious assembly, where the arguments that are worth anything are all on one side, and the votes on the other—three-fourths of that village parliament wishing the money had been offered to them, and they would have shown a little more sense than Tom. “That would have been a miracle,” said Howell Crusoe, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and rising to depart; “for we have not all together as much sense as Tom Boddily has.” “Sense!” said Latter. “Tom has about as much sense as that simple Quaker of Castleborough, Seth Ward, who is only a poor stockinger, and had saved twenty pounds by years of hard work and scraping, and now he has gone and given it all away, by a guinea at a time, to other poor creatures, because he thought it a sin to be laying up treasure on earth. If that’s true, then what a sinner Mr. Heritage must be, and a good many more on ’em!” At this there was general laughter, and the Woodburn philosophers dispersed to their several homes. Betty Trapps and Sylvanus Crook got to high words, too, over Tom’s refusal of the money. Sylvanus had gone down to the Grange with a note from his mistress; and, while he waited for an answer, Betty came down sharp on Sylvanus about Tom.