hadn't been hasty t'other day, we sh'd a been friends yet.
Sit ye down, sir. I sh'd be sorry to reckon you out a liar, Mr. Feverel,
or anybody o' your name. I respects yer father though we're opp'site
politics. I'm willin' to think well o' you. What I say is, that as you
say an't the trewth. Mind! I don't like you none the worse for't. But it
an't what is. That's all! You knows it as well's I!"

Richard, disdaining to show signs of being pacified, angrily reseated
himself. The farmer spoke sense, and the boy, after his late interview
with Austin, had become capable of perceiving vaguely that a towering
passion is hardly the justification for a wrong course of conduct.

"Come," continued the farmer, not unkindly, "what else have you to say?"

Here was the same bitter cup he had already once drained brimming at
Richard's lips again! Alas, poor human nature! that empties to the dregs
a dozen of these evil drinks, to evade the single one which Destiny, less
cruel, had insisted upon.

The boy blinked and tossed it off.

"I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken on you for your
striking me."

Farmer Blaize nodded.

"And now ye've done, young gentleman?"

Still another cupful!

"I should be very much obliged," Richard formally began, but his stomach
was turned; he could but sip and sip, and gather a distaste which
threatened to make the penitential act impossible. "Very much obliged,"
he repeated: "much obliged, if you would be so kind," and it struck him
that had he spoken this at first he would have given it a wording more
persuasive with the farmer and more worthy of his own pride: more honest,
in fact: for a sense of the dishonesty of what he was saying caused him
to cringe and simulate humility to deceive the farmer, and the more he
said the less he felt his words, and, feeling them less, he inflated them
more. "So kind," he stammered, "so kind" (fancy a Feverel asking this big
brute to be so kind!) "as to do me the favour" (me the favour!) "to exert
yourself" (it's all to please Austin) "to endeavour to--hem! to" (there's
no saying it!)--

The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again.

"What I came to ask is, whether you would have the kindness to try what
you could do" (what an infamous shame to have to beg like this!) "do to
save--do to ensure--whether you would have the kindness" It seemed out
of all human power to gulp it down. The draught grew more and more
abhorrent. To proclaim