son.

The barking had its effect in the house, for, as Dinah and Hetty
approached, the doorway was filled by a portly figure, with a ruddy
black-eyed face which bore in it the possibility of looking extremely
acute, and occasionally contemptuous, on market-days, but had now a
predominant after-supper expression of hearty good-nature. It is well
known that great scholars who have shown the most pitiless acerbity in
their criticism of other men's scholarship have yet been of a relenting
and indulgent temper in private life; and I have heard of a learned man
meekly rocking the twins in the cradle with his left hand, while with
his right he inflicted the most lacerating sarcasms on an opponent who
had betrayed a brutal ignorance of Hebrew. Weaknesses and errors must
be forgiven--alas! they are not alien to us--but the man who takes the
wrong side on the momentous subject of the Hebrew points must be treated
as the enemy of his race. There was the same sort of antithetic mixture
in Martin Poyser: he was of so excellent a disposition that he had been
kinder and more respectful than ever to his old father since he had made
a deed of gift of all his property, and no man judged his neighbours
more charitably on all personal matters; but for a farmer, like Luke
Britton, for example, whose fallows were not well cleaned, who didn't
know the rudiments of hedging and ditching, and showed but a small share
of judgment in the purchase of winter stock, Martin Poyser was as hard
and implacable as the north-east wind. Luke Britton could not make a
remark, even on the weather, but Martin Poyser detected in it a taint
of that unsoundness and general ignorance which was palpable in all his
farming operations. He hated to see the fellow lift the pewter pint to
his mouth in the bar of the Royal George on market-day, and the mere
sight of him on the other side of the road brought a severe and critical
expression into his black eyes, as different as possible from the
fatherly glance he bent on his two nieces as they approached the door.
Mr. Poyser had smoked his evening pipe, and now held his hands in his
pockets, as the only resource of a man who continues to sit up after the
day's business is done.

"Why, lasses, ye're rather late to-night," he said, when they reached
the little gate leading into the causeway. "The mother's begun to fidget
about you, an' she's got the little un ill. An' how did you leave the
old woman Bede, Dinah? Is she much