The opening of Chapter II
“There has never been occasion to use them since I’ve been in the parish,” said Parson Dale.
“What does that prove?” quoth the squire, sharply, and looking the parson full in the face.
“Prove!” repeated Mr. Dale, with a smile of benign, yet too conscious superiority, “what does experience prove?”
“That your forefathers were great blockheads, and that their descendant is not a whit the wiser.”
“Squire,” replied the parson, “although that is a melancholy conclusion, yet if you mean it to apply universally, and not to the family of the Dales in particular; it is not one which my candour as a reasoner, and my humility as a mortal, will permit me to challenge.”
“I defy you,” said Mr. Hazeldean, triumphantly. “But to stick to the subject (which it is monstrous hard to do when one talks with a parson), I only just ask you to look yonder, and tell me on your conscience--I don’t even say as a parson, but as a parishioner--whether you ever saw a more disreputable spectacle?”