Jabez took breath. "Now ye bring yer fancy women into the House o' God!
You--a servant o' Christ, you--"
Jock-at-a-Venture interrupted the sentence with his daring fist, which
seemed to lift Jabez from the ground by his chin, and then to let him
fall in a heap, as though his clothes had been a sack containing loose
bones.
"A good-day to ye, Brother Brett," said Jock, reaching for his hat, and
departing with a slam of the vestry door.
He emerged at the back of the chapel and got by "back-entries" into
Aboukir Street, up which he strolled with a fine show of tranquillity,
as far as the corner of Trafalgar Road, where stood and stands the great
Dragon Hotel. The congregations of several chapels were dispersing
slowly round about this famous corner, and Jock had to salute several of
his own audience. Then suddenly he saw Mrs Clowes and her four children
enter the tap-room door of the Dragon.
He hesitated one second and followed the variegated flotilla and its
convoy.
The tap-room was fairly full of both sexes. But among them Jock and Mrs
Clowes and her children were the only persons who had been to church or
chapel.
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