"
Sir Thomas shook his head, and declared he would not be uncharitable
to rector, or dean, or doctor, but that certain surmises swam
uppermost. He then winked at Master Silas, who said, incontinently,
-
"You have it, Sir Thomas! The blind buzzards! with their stars and
saps!"
"Well, but Silas! you yourself have told us over and over again, in
church, that there are arcana."
"So there are,--I uphold it," replied Master Silas; "but a fig for
the greater part, and a fig-leaf for the rest. As for these signs,
they are as plain as any page in the Revelation."
Sir Thomas, after short pondering, said, scoffingly, -
"In regard to the rawness of the air having any effect whatsoever on
those who discourse orthodoxically on theology, it is quite as
absurd as to imagine that a man ever caught cold in a Protestant
church. I am rather of opinion that it was a judgment on the rector
for his evil-mindedness toward the cook, the Lord foreknowing that
he was about to be wilful and vengeful in that quarter. It was,
however, more advisedly that he took other pullets, on his own view
of the case, although it might be that the same pullets would suit
him again as well as ever, when his appetite should return; for it
doth not appear that they were loath to lay, but laid somewhat
unsatisfactorily.
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