"I had some conversation with him once;" and observing the squire's surprise, he added--"when I was curate at Lansmere, and about a painful business connected with the family of one of my parishioners." "Oh, one of your parishioners at Lansmere,--one of the constituents Mr.
Audley Egerton threw over, after all the pains I had taken to get him his seat.

Rather odd you should never have mentioned this before, Mr.
Dale!" "My dear sir," said the parson, sinking his voice, and in a mild tone of conciliatory expostulation, "you are so irritable whenever Mr.Egerton's name is mentioned at all." "Irritable!" exclaimed the squire, whose wrath had been long simmering, and now fairly boiled over,--"irritable, sir! I should think so: a man for whom I stood godfather at the hustings, Mr.Dale! a man for whose sake I was called a 'prize ox,' Mr.Dale! a man for whom I was hissed in a market-place, Mr.Dale! a man for whom I was shot at, in cold blood, by an officer in His Majesty's service, who lodged a ball in my right shoulder, Mr.Dale! a man who had the ingratitude, after all this, to turn his back on the landed interest,--to deny that there was any agricultural distress in a year which broke three of the best farmers I ever had, Mr.Dale!--a man, sir, who made a speech on the Currency which was complimented by Ricardo, a Jew! Good heavens! a pretty parson you are, to stand up for a fellow complimented by a Jew! Nice ideas you must have of Christianity! Irritable, sir!" now fairly roared the squire, adding to the thunder of his voice the cloud of a brow, which evinced a menacing ferocity that might have done honour to Bussy d'Amboise or Fighting Fitzgerald.

"Sir, if that man had not been my own half-brother, I'd have called him out.

I have stood my ground before now.

I have had a ball in my right shoulder.