THE SMUGGLER. 65 



CHAPTER VII. 



To a very hungry man it matters not much what is put upon 

 the table so that it be eatable, but with the intellectual appe- 

 tite the case is different, and every one is anxious to know 

 who is to be his companion, or what is to be in his book. 

 Now Sir Edward Digby was somewhat of an epicure in human 

 character, and he always felt as great a curiosity to enjoy any 

 new personage brought before him, as the more ordinary epi- 

 cure desires to taste a new dish. He was equally refined, 

 too, in regard to the taste of his intellectual food. He liked a 

 good deal of flavour, but not too much ; a soupcon of some- 

 thing, he did not well know what, in a man's demeanour gave 

 it great zest, as a soupcon of two or three condiments so 

 blended in a salmi as to defy analysis must have charmed 

 Vatel; and, to say the truth, the little he had seen or heard 

 of the house in which he now was, together with his know- 

 ledge of some of its antecedents, had awakened a great desire 

 for a farther taste of its quality. 



When he went down stairs, then, and opened the dining- 

 room door, his eye naturally ran round in search of the new 

 guests. Only two, however, had arrived, in the first of whom 

 he recognised Mr. Zachary Croyland. The other was a vene- 

 rable looking old man in black, whom he could not conceive 

 to be Mr. Radford, from the previous account which he had 

 heard of that respectable gentleman's character. It turned out, 

 however, that the person before him, who had been omitted by 

 Sir Robert Croyland in the enumeration of his expected visitors, 

 was the clergyman of the neighbouring village; and being 

 merely a plain, good man, of very excellent sense, but neither 

 rich, noble, nor thrifty, was nobody in the opinion of the baronet. 



As soon as Sir Edward Digby appeared, Mr. Zachary 

 Croyland, with his back tall, straight, and stiff as a poker, 

 advanced towards him and shook him cordially by the hand. 

 "Welcome, welcome, my young friend," he said; "you've 

 kept your word, I see, and that's a good sign of any man, 

 especially when he knows that there's neither pleasure, profit, 

 nor popularity to be gained by so doing; and I'm sure there's 



