ant to paste blue paper over them; we've
waxed floors to walk on, and we must pay two dollars a yard for a carpet
to save the oak plank! Begone with your nonsense, ye demented jades!"

The squire smote the oak floor with his heavy cane, and the rosy
petitioners fled from his presence laughing. In due time, however, the
parlors were furnished with carpets, curtains, paper, and all the
fixtures of modern luxury. The ladies were, of course, greatly
delighted; and while professing great aversion and contempt for the
"tawdry lumber," it was plain to see that the worthy man enjoyed their
pleasure as much as they did the new furniture.

On another occasion, too, did the doughty squire suffer defeat under
circumstances far more humiliating, and from an adversary far less
worthy.

The western horizon was blushing rosy red at the coming of the sun,
whose descending chariot was hidden by the thick Indian-summer haze that
covered lowland and mountain as it were with a violet-tinted veil. This
was the condition of things (we were going to say) when Squire Hardy
sallied forth, charged with a small bag of salt, for the purpose of
looking after his farm generally, and particularly of salting his sheep.
It was an interesting sight to see the old gentleman, with his
dignified, portly figure, marching at the head of a long procession of
improved breeds--the universally-received emblems of innocence and
patience. Barring his modern costume, he might have suggested to the
artist's mind a picture of one of the Patriarchs.

Having come to a convenient place, or having tired himself crying
_co-nan_, _co-nan_, at the top of his voice, the squire halted. The
black ram halted, and the long procession of ewes and well-grown lambs
moved up in a dense semicircle, and also halted, expressing their
pleasure at the expected treat by gentle bleatings. The squire stooped
to spread the salt. The black ram, either from most uncivil impatience,
or mistaking the movement of the proprietor's coat-tail for a challenge,
pitched into him incontinently. "_Plenum sed_," as the Oxonions say. An
attack from behind, so sudden and unexpected, threw the squire sprawling
on his face into a stone pile.

Oh, never was the thunder's jar,
The red tornado's wasting wing,
Or all the elemental war,

like the fury of Squire Hardy on that occasion.

He recovered his feet with the agility of a boy, his nose bleeding and a
stone in each hand. The timid flock