I told Mr.
Simpson, sir, of the sport we were to have to-day, and he seemed to care nothing about it!" Robin sighed aloud.
"I suppose so," he said.
"Mr.John looked well, sir," pursued Dick, and proceeded to speak at length of the FitzHerbert troubles, and the iniquities of the Queen's Grace.

He was such a man as was to be found throughout all England everywhere at this time--a man whose religion was a part of his politics, and none the less genuine for that.

He was a shrewd man in his way, with the simplicity which belongs to such shrewdness; he disliked the new ways which he experienced chiefly in the towns, and put them down, not wholly without justice, to the change of which religion formed an integral part; he hated the beggars and would gladly have gone to see one flogged; and he disliked the ministers and their sermons and their "prophesyings" with all the healthy ardour of prejudice.

Once in the year did Dick approach the sacraments, and a great business he made of it, being unusually morose before them and almost indecently boisterous after them.

He was feudal to the very heart of him; and it was his feudality that made him faithful to his religion as well as to his masters, for either of which he would resolutely have died.