ad was butting or boring its way through a palpable
atmosphere, keeping his person, from the waist up, so far in advance
that the _a posteriori_ portion seemed as if it had been detached from
the other, and was engaged in a ceaseless but ineffectual struggle to
regain its position; or, in shorter and more intelligible words, the
latter end of him seemed to be perpetually in pursuit of his head and
shoulders, without ever being able to overtake them. Whilst engaged in
maintaining this compound motion, his elbows and arms swung from right
to left, and vice versa, very like the movements of a weaver throwing
the shuttle from side to side. Turbot had one acknowledged virtue in a
pre-eminent degree, we mean hospitality. It is true he gave admirable
dinners, but it would be a fact worth boasting of, to find any man at
his table who was not able to give, and who did give, better dinners
than himself. The doctor's face, however, in spite of his slinging and
ungainly person, was upon the whole rather good. His double chin, and
the full, rosy expression of his lips and mouth, betokened, at the very
least, the force of luxurious habits, and, as a hedge school-master
of our acquaintance used to say, the smallest taste in life of
voluptuousity; whilst from his black, twinkling eyes, that seemed always
as if they were about to herald a jest, broke forth, especially when he
conversed with the softer sex, something which might be considered
as holding a position between a laugh and a leer. Such was the Rev.
Jeremiah Turbot, to whom we shall presently take the liberty of
introducing the reader.

The parsonage, to which our friend Purcel is now making his approach,
was an excellent and comfortable building. It stood on a very pretty
eminence, and consequently commanded a beautiful prospect both in front
and rear; for the fact was, that in consequence of the beauty of the
scenery for miles about it, some incumbent of good taste had given it a
second hall door, thus enabling the inhabitants to partake of a double
enjoyment, by an equal facility of contemplating the exquisite scenery
of the country both in front and rear. A beautiful garden lay facing the
south, and a little below, in the same direction, stood a venerable old
rookery, whilst through the rich, undulating fields flowed, in graceful
windings, a beautiful river, on whose green and fertile banks sheep and
black cattle were always to be seen, sometimes feeding or chewing the
cud