Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/241
three thousand foxes, And—being s bachelor man—every time he went to bed in summer he used to open the bed at bottom and crawl up head-foremost, to mind en of the coming winter and the good sport he'd have, and the foxes going to earth, And whenever there was a christening at the aquire’s, and he had dinner there afterwards, as he always did, he never failed to christen the chiel over again in a bottle of port-wine.
“Now the clerk was the pa’son’s groom and gardener and jineral manager, and had just got back to his work in the garden when he, too, saw the hunting man pass, and presently aaw lots more of ‘em, noblemen and gentry, and then he saw the hounds, the . huntsman, Jim Treadhedge, the whipper-in, and I don’t know who besides. The clerk loved going to cover as frantical as the pa’gon, eo much go that, whenever he saw or heard the pack, he could no more rule his feelings than if they were the winds of heaven, He might be bedding, or he might be sowing-—all was forgot. So he throws down his spade and rushes in to the pa’son, who was by this time as frantical to go as he.
“That there mare of yours, sir, do want exercise bad, very bad, this morning !’ the clerk says, all of a tremble, ‘Don’t ye think I'd better trot her round the downs for an hour, sir?’
“To be sure, she does want exercise badly. I'll trot her round myself,’ says the pa’son.
"'Oh !—you'll trot her yerself? Weill, there's the cob, sir. Really that cob is getting oncontrollable through biding in a stable so long! If you wouldn't mind my putting ou the saddie—’
“'Very well. Take him out, certainly,’ says the pa’son, never caring what the clerk did so long as he himself could get off immediately. So, scrambling into his riding-boots and breeches as quick as he could,