vening
and blew horns and beat kettles before his house, till the
constable, who has behaved very well, persuaded them to go away.

"In the morning one of the pigs had been taken out of the pound;
not Betty's son's, I am glad to say--for no doubt it was very
wrong of the men to take it out. The farmer was furious, and went
with the constable in the morning to find the pig, but they could
hear nothing of it anywhere. James Pope, the man to whom it
belonged, only laughed at them, and said he never could keep his
pig in himself, because it was grandson to one of the acting pigs
that went about to the fairs, and all the pigs of that family
took to climbing naturally; so his pig must have climbed out of
the pound. This of course was all a story; the men had lifted the
pig out of the pound, and then killed it, so that the farmer
might not find it, and sold the meat cheap all over the parish.
Betty went to the farmer that morning and paid the half crown,
and got her son's pig out before he came home; but Farmer Tester
stopped the other half crown out of the men's wages, which made
matters worse then ever.

"The day that we were in the Theatre at Oxford, Farmer Tester was
away at one of the markets. He turns his big cattle out to graze
on the common, which the poor people say he has no right to do,
and in the afternoon a pony of his got into the allotments, and
Betty's son caught it, and took it to the constable, and had it
put in the pound. The constable tried to persuade him not to do
it, but it was of no use; and so, when Farmer Tester came home,
he found that his turn had come. I am afraid that he was not
sober, for I hear that he behaved dreadfully both to the
constable and to Betty's son, and, when he found that he could
not frighten them, he declared he would have the law of them if
it cost him twenty pounds. So in the morning he went to fetch his
lawyer, and when we got home you can fancy what a scene it was.

"You remember how poorly papa was when you left us at Lambourn.
By the time we got home he was quite knocked up, and so nervous
that he was fit for nothing except to have a quiet cup of tea in
his own room. I was sure as we drove up the street, there was
something the matter. The ostler was watching outside the Red
Lion, and ran in as soon as we came in sight; and, as we passed
the door, out came Farmer Tester, looking very flushed in the
face, and carrying his great iron-handled whip, and a person with
him,