That same evening while Bess sat bound in Dan’s cottage in the deeps of Pevensel, there was much weighing of words in the dining-room at Hardacre.
Dr. Jessel, rector and chaplain, sat at the polished table, with paper, ink, and pouncet-box before him, and a much-nibbled quill in his fist. For years he had acted as the confidential scribe and scholarly supervisor of letters to the household of Hardacre, and he had been called in that morning to prepare a certain epistle, guided by the baronet’s personal discretion. Sir Peter faced the parson across the table, and advised him magisterially as to the contents of the letter.
Mr. Lancelot was pacing the room behind his father’s chair, cocking his sword under his coat-tails, expanding his chest and swinging his shoulders with an air of exuberant self-satisfaction. He appeared to feel no little contempt for Parson Jessel and the baronet as they squabbled and argued over the phrasing of this momentous letter. The parson’s classic and elegant style was not flexible and fierce enough to adapt itself to Sir Peter’s temper. The chaplain was a diplomat and a literary sycophant by nature. His Ciceronian taste revolted from Sir Peter’s blunt and brutal methods of expression.
The baronet leaned back at last with his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, hiccoughed, and regarded Jessel with evident irritation.
“Put it down, Jessel,” he said; “put it down—I say. I ain’t going to draw my ale mild for fear of scalding the young scoundrel’s stomach. Call a blackguard a blackguard, sir, when he deserves it. You’re too damned polite, Jessel. Give it him hot on the last page. I’m right there, ain’t I, Lot?”
Mr. Lancelot came to a halt behind his father’s chair, fixed his eyes on the parson’s face, and upheld Sir Peter.
“Put in plenty of brimstone, Jessel,” he said. “Rub it in, man—rub it in.”
“That’s the tune, Lot,” said the baronet, warmly. “I’m dry to the lungs with haggling with ye. Confound this scholarly niceness, I say! Call a cur a cur, sir, and have done with it.”
The chaplain screwed up his mouth with a whimsical expression of resignation, shook his wig, and put pen to paper. He scratched away for a minute or so to the baronet’s dictation, finished with a flourish, shook the pouncet-box over the page, and leaned back in his chair with the letter in his hand.