Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/243

"'Ha, ha!’ says the pa’son, a-glancing back into the clerk’s, ‘Halloo!’ he shoute, as he sees the fox break cover at that moment.

“'Halloo! cries the clerk. ‘There he goes! Why, dammy, there’s two foxes—’

"'Hush, clerk, hush! Don’t let me hear that word again! Remember our calling,’

“'True, sir, true. But really, good sport do carry away a man so that he’s apt to forget his high persuasion!’ And the next minute the corner of the clerk’s eye shot again into the corner of the pa’son’s, and the pa’son’s back again to the olerk’s. ‘Hee, hee!’ said the clerk,

"'Ha, ha!’ said Pa’son Toogood.

"'Ah, sir,’ says the clerk again, ‘this is better than crying Amen to your Evyer-and-ever on a winter’s morning?

""Yes, indeed, clerk! To everything there’s a season,’ asys Pa’aon Toogood, quite pat, for he was a learned Christian man when he liked, and had chapter and ve’se at his tongue’s end, as a pa’son should.

"At last, late in the day, the hunting came to an end by the fox running into a’ old woman’s cottage, under her table, and up the olock-case, The pa’son and clerk were among the first in at the death, their faces a-staring in at the old woman’s winder, and the clock striking as he’d never been heard to strik’ before. Then came the question of finding their way home.

“ Neither the pa’son nor the clerk knowed how they were going to do this, for their beasts were wellnigh tired down to the ground. But they started back along as well as they could, though they were so done up that they could only drag along at a’ amble, and not much of that at a time.

"'We shall never, never get there!’ groaned Mr, Toogood, quite bowed down.