r. Gilfil's memory
on the part of Dame Fripp had no theological bearing whatever. It was due
to an event which had occurred some years back, and which, I am sorry to
say, had left that grimy old lady as indifferent to the means of grace as
ever. Dame Fripp kept leeches, and was understood to have such remarkable
influence over those wilful animals in inducing them to bite under the
most unpromising circumstances, that though her own leeches were usually
rejected, from a suspicion that they had lost their appetite, she herself
was constantly called in to apply the more lively individuals furnished
from Mr. Pilgrim's surgery, when, as was very often the case, one of that
clever man's paying patients was attacked with inflammation. Thus Dame
Fripp, in addition to 'property' supposed to yield her no less than
half-a-crown a-week, was in the receipt of professional fees, the gross
amount of which was vaguely estimated by her neighbours as 'pouns an'
pouns'. Moreover, she drove a brisk trade in lollipop with epicurean
urchins, who recklessly purchased that luxury at the rate of two hundred
per cent. Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the
shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at
Mrs. Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs. Fripp was 'as false as
two folks', and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning
towards her as an old neighbour.

'There's that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves
again,' Mrs. Hackit would say; 'an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her,
though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!'

Such was Dame Fripp, whom Mr. Gilfil, riding leisurely in top-boots and
spurs from doing duty at Knebley one warm Sunday afternoon, observed
sitting in the dry ditch near her cottage, and by her side a large pig,
who, with that ease and confidence belonging to perfect friendship, was
lying with his head in her lap, and making no effort to play the
agreeable beyond an occasional grunt.

'Why, Mrs. Fripp,' said the Vicar, 'I didn't know you had such a fine
pig. You'll have some rare flitches at Christmas!'

'Eh, God forbid! My son gev him me two 'ear ago, an' he's been company to
me iver sin'. I couldn't find i' my heart to part wi'm, if I niver knowed
the taste o' bacon-fat again.'

'Why, he'll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a
pig, and making nothing by him?'

'O, he picks a bit hisself wi' root