were all their backs towards me, than I said to myself that
the human race happily is not spiderine. I girt up my loins, or rather
fetched my tails up under my arms very closely, and glided away, with
the silence of the serpent, and the craft of the enemy of our fallen
race. Great care was needful, and I exercised it; and here you behold
me, unshot and unshot-at, and free from all anxiety, except a pressing
urgency for a bowl of your admirable soup, Maria, and a cut from the
saddle I saw hanging in the cellar."

CHAPTER XXIX

MATERNAL ELOQUENCE

Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof; and more than sufficient
with most of us. Mr. Twemlow and his wife resolved discreetly, after a
fireside council, to have nothing to say to Carne Castle, or about it,
save what might be forced out of them. They perceived most clearly, and
very deeply felt, how exceedingly wrong it is for anybody to transgress,
or even go aside of, the laws of his country, as by Statute settled.
Still, if his ruin had been chiefly legal; if he had been brought up
under different laws, and in places where they made those things which
he desired to deal in; if it was clear that those things were good, and
their benefit might be extended to persons who otherwise could have no
taste of them; above all, if it were the first and best desire of all
who heard of it to have their own fingers in the pie--then let others
stop it, who by duty and interest were so minded; the Rector was not in
the Commission of the Peace--though he ought to have been there years
ago--and the breach of the law, if it came to that, was outside of his
parish boundary. The voice of the neighbourhood would be with him, for
not turning against his own nephew, even if it ever should come to be
known that he had reason for suspicions.

It is hard to see things in their proper light, if only one eye has a
fly in it; but if both are in that sad condition, who shall be blamed
for winking? Not only the pastor, but all his flock, were in need of
wire spectacles now, to keep their vision clear and their foreheads
calm. Thicker than flies around the milk-pail, rumours came flitting
daily; and even the night--that fair time of thinking--was busy with
buzzing multitude.

"Long time have I lived, and a sight have I seed," said Zebedee Tugwell
to his wife, "of things as I couldn't make no head nor tail of; but
nothing to my knowledge ever coom nigh the sort of way our folk has
taken to go