50
IVYLDER'S HAJVD.
"Well, it won't do him any harm," I repeated.
"Harm! 0, let Jos Larkin alone for that. It gets
him all the religious business of the county; I dare say it
brings him in two or three hundred a year, eh?" And
Wylder laughed again. "It has broken up his hard, proud
heart," he says; "but it left him a devilish hard head, I
told him, and I think it sharpens his wits."
"I rather think you'll find him a useful man; and to
be so in his line of business he must have his wits about
him, I can tell you."
"He amused me devilishly," said Wylder, "with a sort
of exhortation he treated me to; he's a delightfully im-
pudent chap, and gave me to understand I was a limb of
the Devil, and he a saint. I told him I was better than
he, in my humble opinion, and so I am, by chalks. I
know very well I'm a miserable sinner, but there's mercy
above, and I don't hide my faults. I don't set up for a
light or a saint; I'm just what the prayer-book says — a
miserable sinner. There's only one good thing I can safely
say for myself — I am no Pharisee; that's all; I'm no
religious prig, pufBng myself, and trusting to forms, making
long prayers in the market-place " (Mark's quotations were
paraphrastic), " and thinking of nothing but the uppermost
seat in the synagogue, and the praise of men — hang them,
I hate those fellows."
t£ Do you wish another game?" I asked.
"Just now," said Wylder, emitting first a thin stream
of smoke, and watching its ascent. "Dorcas is the belle
« of the county; and she likes me, though she's odd, and
don't show it the way other girls would. But a fellow
knows pretty well when a girl likes him, and you know the
marriage is a sensible sort of thing, and I'm determined,
of course, to carry it through; but, hang it, a fellow can't
help thinking sometimes there are other things besides