The Carrier now looked at his brother, with more of pity than suspicion. Tickuss had always been regarded as the weak member of the family, because he laid on more fat than muscle, even in the time of most active growth. And to keep him regularly straight was more than all the set efforts of the brotherhood could, even when he was young, effect. Therefore Zak stood back some little, and the butt of his whip fell down to earth. Leviticus saw his chance, and seized it.
"Consarning of goin' to public-house, I would never be too particular. A man may do it, or a man may not, according to manner of his things at home, or his own little brew, or the temper of his wife. I would not blame him, nor yet praise him, for things as he knoweth best about. To make light of a man for not going to public, is the same as to blame him for stopping from church. A man as careth for good opinion goeth to both, but a cannot always do it. And I ain't a been in church now for more nor a week of Sundays."
The force of this reasoning came home to Cripps. If a man was unable to go to church, there was good room for arguing that his duty towards the public-house must not be too rigidly exacted. Zacchary therefore fetched a sigh. None of the race had broken up at so early an age as that of Tickuss. But still, from his own sad experience, the Carrier knew what pigs were; and he thought that his brother, though younger than himself, might be called away before him.
"Tickuss," he said, "I may a' been too hard. Nobody knows but them that has to do it what the worrit of the roads is. I may a' said a word here and there too much, and a bit outside the Gospel. According to they a man must believe a liar, and forgive un, and forgive un over and over again, the same as I tries to forgive you, Tickuss."
Zacchary offered his hand to his brother, but Leviticus was ashamed to take it. With the load now weighing upon his mind, and the sense in his heart of what Zacchary was, Tickuss--whatever his roguery was--could not make believe to have none of it. So he turned away, with his feelings hurt too much for the clasp fraternal.
"When a man hath no more respect for hiszell," he muttered over his puckered shoulder, "and no more respect for his father and mother avore un, than to call his very next brother but one a rogue and a liar, and a schemer against publics, to my mind he have gone too far, and not shown the manners relied upon."