Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/673

Rh his gig, where Mr. Matthews was to sleep the night. Froude had drunk too much, but insisted on driving home himself. At the bottom of the long street the road crosses the river, and the bridge is set on at an angle to the road. The horse was a spirited animal, and was going home. So down the street they went at a spanking pace, and over the bridge with a whir. Froude had fallen asleep already, but Matthews seized the reins and guided the animal, and thus they narrowly escaped destruction.

Froude slept on, and, arriving at Knowstone, Matthews went in to prepare the young wife to get the rector to bed.

"Oh, what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Froude, when she was informed that her husband was not very well, and had better be put to bed. "Oh! dear lamb"—Mrs. Froude was not happy in her choice of descriptive epithets—"dear lamb, are you ill? Oh dear! dear!" "Nonsense," retorted Froude, "I bain't ill. I’m only drunk, my dear, that's all."

One day he was riding on the quay at Barnstaple, and asked some question of a bargeman in his boat. The fellow gave him a rude answer. Thereupon Froude leaped his horse down into the barge, and thrashed the man.

In the end, Froude gave up doing duty, and retired into a small house in Molland, as more sheltered than Knowstone. In The Maid of Sker, Blackmore represents him as torn to pieces by his hounds. Actually this was not the occasion of his death. Before his parlour window grew a peculiarly handsome trimmed box-tree. Now Froude had done a mean and cruel act to a young farmer near, tricking him out of a considerable sum of money. One night the box-tree was pulled up by the roots and carried away, no one knew