altogether." This
removed all misunderstanding; but Rector Twemlow, arriving too late
for anything but exhortation, asked a little too sternly--as everybody
felt--under what influence of the Evil One Cheeseman had committed that
mistake. The reply was worthy of an enterprising tradesman, and brought
him such orders from a score of miles around that the resources of the
establishment could only book them.

"Sir," he said, looking at the parson sadly, with his right hand laid
upon his heart, which was feeble, and his left hand intimating that his
neck was sore, "if anything has happened that had better not have been,
it must have been by reason of the weight I give, and the value such a
deal above the prices."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

EVERYBODY'S MASTER

The peril of England was now growing fast; all the faster from being in
the dark. The real design of the enemy escaped the penetration even
of Nelson, and our Government showed more anxiety about their great
adversary landing on the coast of Egypt than on that of England. Naval
men laughed at his flat-bottomed boats, and declared that one frigate
could sink a hundred of them; whereas it is probable that two of them,
with their powerful guns and level fire, would have sunk any frigate we
then possessed. But the crafty and far-seeing foe did not mean to allow
any frigate, or line-of-battle ship, the chance of enquiring how that
might be.

His true scheme, as everybody now knows well, was to send the English
fleet upon a wild-goose chase, whether to Egypt, the west coast of
Ireland, or the West Indies, as the case might be; and then, by a rapid
concentration of his ships, to obtain command of the English Channel,
if only for twenty-four hours at a time. Twenty-four hours of clearance
from our cruisers would have seen a hundred thousand men landed on our
coast, throwing up entrenchments, and covering the landing of another
hundred thousand, coming close upon their heels. Who would have faced
them? A few good regiments, badly found, and perhaps worse led, and a
mob of militia and raw volunteers, the reward of whose courage would be
carnage.

But as a chip smells like the tree, and a hair like the dog it belongs
to, so Springhaven was a very fair sample of the England whereof (in its
own opinion) it formed a most important part. Contempt for the body of
a man leads rashly to an under-estimate of his mind; and one of the
greatest men that ever grew on earth--if greatness