Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/672

560 hunting on their own head. He brought the hare into the church and threw it under his seat till the sermon was done, the blessing given, and the congregation dismissed.

When Froude got old he was forced by the Bishop to have a curate. "I don't care to keep dogs to do the barking for me, no fye," said he, "but I can't help it. You see, I just maintains a rough boy to do the work now, and I sits in the vestry and hears un tell."

Between services one Sunday, Froude gave his young curate, who was dining with him and some of his farmer friends, too much of his soft but strong ale. He disliked the young fellow, who was a bit of a clown and uncouth, and did it out of malice. The curate, quite ignorant of the headiness of the ale, inadvertently got fuddled.

The conversation turned on a monstrous pig that Froude had killed, and which was hung up in his outhouse, and he invited his guests to accompany him and view the carcase, and estimate the weight. One thought it weighed so many stone, others thought differently. Froude said that it weighed just the same as his curate, who was fat. The rough farmers demurred to the rector's estimate, and, finding an empty corn-sack, they thrust the intoxicated ecclesiastic into it, and, hanging him up to the end of the beam, shouted with delight as the curate brought the weight down. Meantime the bells were ringing for evensong, but they left the curate hung up in the sack, where he slept uncomfortably. The congregation assembled for service, and waited. Froude would not officiate, and the curate was incapable of doing so.

Mr. Matthews, afterwards Prebendary of Exeter, had been dining at Southmolton in Froude's company, and Froude undertook to drive him back to Knowstone in