'Try and be charitable, William.

I sometimes think that at Chesterton we hardly knew what charity meant.' That evening the proposed visit to Chesterton was discussed at Folking.
The old man had very strongly taken up his son's side, and was of opinion that the Boltons were not only uncharitable, but perversely ill-conditioned in the view which they took.

To his thinking, Crinkett, Adamson, and the woman were greedy, fraudulent scoundrels, who had brought forward this charge solely with the view of extorting money.

He declared that the very fact that they had begun by asking for money should have barred their evidence before any magistrates.

The oaths of the four 'scoundrels' were, according to him, worth nothing.