’You are not to wonder, Madam; believe the sage, who says, omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus.’

Devereux knew of old that the effect of Latin on Mrs. Irons was to heighten the inflammation, and so the matron burst into whole chapters of crimination, enlivened with a sprinkling of strong words, as the sages of the law love to pepper their indictments and informations with hot adverbs and well-spiced parentheses, ‘falsely,’ ‘scandalously,’ ‘maliciously,’ and suadente diabolo, to make them sit warm on the stomachs of a loyal judge and jury, and digest easily.

The neighbours were so accustomed to Mrs. Irons’ griefs, that when her voice was audible, as upon such occasions it was, upon the high road and in the back gardens, it produced next to no sensation; everybody had heard from that loud oracle every sort of story touching Irons which could well be imagined, and it was all so thoroughly published by the good lady, that curiosity on the subject was pretty well dead and gone, and her distant declamation rattled over their heads and boomed in their ears, like the distant guns and trumpets on a review day, signifying nothing.

And all this only shows what every man who has ruralised a little in his lifetime knows, more than in theory, that the golden age lingers in no corner of the earth, but is really quite gone and over everywhere, and that peace and prisca fides have not fled to the nooks and shadows of deep valleys and bowery brooks, but flown once, and away to heaven again, and left the round world to its general curse.  So it is even in pretty old villages, embowered in orchards, with hollyhocks and jessamine in front of the houses, and primeval cocks and hens pecking and scraping in the street, and the modest river dimpling and simpering among osiers and apple trees, and old ivied walls close by—­you sometimes hear other things than lowing herds, and small birds singing, and purling streams; and shrill accents and voluble rhetoric will now and then trouble the fragrant air, and wake up the dim old river-god from his nap.

As to Irons, if he was all that his wife gave out, he must have been a mighty sly dog indeed; for on the whole, he presented a tolerably decent exterior to society.  It is said, indeed, that he liked a grave tumbler of punch, and was sardonic and silent in his liquor; that his gait was occasionally a little queer and uncertain, as his lank figure glided home by moonlight, from the ‘Salmon House;’ and that his fingers fumbled longer than need be with the latch, and his tongue, though it tried but a short and grim ‘bar’th door, Marjry,’ or ‘gi’ me can’le, wench,’ sometimes lacked its cunning, and slipped and kept not time.  There were, too, other scandals, such as the prying and profane love to shoot privily at church celebrities.  Perhaps it was his reserve and sanctity that provoked them.  Perhaps he was, in truth, though cautious, sometimes indiscreet.  Perhaps it was fanciful Mrs. Irons’ jealous hullabaloos and hysterics that did it—­I don’t know—­but people have been observed, apropos of him, to wink at one another, and grin, and shake their heads, and say:  ’the nearer the church, you know’—­and ’he so ancient, too! but ‘tis an old rat that won’t eat cheese,’ and so forth.