ecclesiastical life as the _nolo episcopari_, he consented to take
on himself the chill dignity of going to Kench's. But to the
farrier's strong disgust, Mr. Macey now started an objection to his
proposing himself as a deputy-constable; for that oracular old
gentleman, claiming to know the law, stated, as a fact delivered to
him by his father, that no doctor could be a constable.

"And you're a doctor, I reckon, though you're only a cow-doctor--
for a fly's a fly, though it may be a hoss-fly," concluded
Mr. Macey, wondering a little at his own "'cuteness".

There was a hot debate upon this, the farrier being of course
indisposed to renounce the quality of doctor, but contending that a
doctor could be a constable if he liked--the law meant, he needn't
be one if he didn't like. Mr. Macey thought this was nonsense,
since the law was not likely to be fonder of doctors than of other
folks. Moreover, if it was in the nature of doctors more than of
other men not to like being constables, how came Mr. Dowlas to be so
eager to act in that capacity?

"_I_ don't want to act the constable," said the farrier, driven
into a corner by this merciless reasoning; "and there's no man can
say it of me, if he'd tell the truth. But if there's to be any
jealousy and en_vy_ing about going to Kench's in the rain, let them
go as like it--you won't get me to go, I can tell you."

By the landlord's intervention, however, the dispute was
accommodated. Mr. Dowlas consented to go as a second person
disinclined to act officially; and so poor Silas, furnished with
some old coverings, turned out with his two companions into the rain