'Twas too true: it rung upon the flag-stone like an unadulterated piece of lead.
"What's the matter now, Sam?" said Mrs Molly who heard the sound, and met his blank face in the passage.
"I told you what he was," said Sam--"look here!" Molly examined the unfortunate coin with every wish to give it the benefit of a doubt, but was obliged finally to pronounce against it. She had to listen, also, to the story which Sam had heard from Joe Haines; and though she clung pertinaciously to her previously-formed conclusions in the stranger's favour, Sam had now decidedly the best of the argument, which he clinched at last with what he considered an unanswerable proposition--"If you says as he's a parson and a gentleman, will you give me two-and-sixpence for this here half-crown?"
Weeks passed on, and other events wore out the interest of the stranger's visit, even in those dull localities. Binns' wife had a baby; and another piece of the church roof fell in, and nearly carried Brooks the churchwarden with it, as he was mounted on a ladder estimating its repairs--for there was an archdeacon's visitation coming on, and not even the vulcanised conscience of a parish functionary could be brought to pronounce, on oath, its present state of repair to be good and sufficient. And Harry received an invitation to dine with the said archdeacon, who was a good kind of man on the whole--that is, his good qualities would not very well bear taking to pieces--but he rather patronised the younger clergy in his neighbourhood, provided that they were young men of tolerable family, and good address, and not, as he expressed it, _ultra_ in any way. It so happened, that he was almost the only acquaintance that Harry had made in the neighbourhood. He had written to request his interference in enforcing the repair of the church; and as that was a compliment seldom paid to his official dignity, the archdeacon had actually driven over thirteen miles to inspect the place personally; and, arriving quite unexpectedly, had caught the curate just sallying forth equipped for fishing--an art to which he himself occasionally condescended--for even archdeacons do unbend. And very soon ascertaining that there was no tendency to an objectionable _ultra_, of any kind, in our hero, and that he was in fact rather an eligible rear-rank man for a dinner-table, he had made a mental memorandum of the fact, and, in consequence, had twice favoured him with an invitation, which Harry, according to his present humour, had declined. On this occasion, however--as a third refusal would have seemed ungracious--he had determined to go; and, with some compunction at the expense (he had thought nothing at Oxford of a hunter, and a "team" to cover, at about five guineas for the day), he found himself in a hired gig at the archdeacon's door, a little before the dinner hour on the day appointed. None of the guests were as yet assembled. His host, however, met him in the drawing-room, and presented him, with considerable cordiality, to his lady and her daughters.