e gone over to the chapel--left the church;
not there last Sunday. But I saw that Brazenstare there, trying, as she
sat just before you, to put you, Mr Curate, out of countenance. Well,
Jahn tells me that the Reverend the Cow-doctor preached last evening a
stirring sermon on the occasion, and was very hot upon the impurities
and idolatries of the 'Establishment.' And Jahn tells me they don't
speak quite so well of me as they should; for when he plainly told
Miffins in his own shop, that he was sure his master would not
countenance any thing wrong, the impudent fellow only said, 'May be not;
but he and his master might not be of the same opinion as to what _is_
wrong.' The rogue! I should like to have put all his weights in the
inspector's scales."

"Yes," quoth Jahn, "but I am 'most ashamed to tell your honour what Tom
Potts, the exciseman, said, who happened to be present."

"Out with it, by all means, Jahn," said our friend.

"Well then, sir, as true as you are there, he said that your honour was
a very kind gentleman, and your word was worth any other ten men's in
most things; but where it might be to get a friend out of trouble, and,
for aught he knew, foe either, why then, he thought your honour might
fib a bit."

"Surely," said Gratian, "he didn't say quite that?"

"Yes," quoth Jahn, "quite that, and more; something remarkable."

"Remarkable!" said I,--"what could that be?"

"Why, something I shan't forget; and I don't think it was religious and
proper," said Jahn; and lowering his voice, and addressing me and the
Curate rather than his master, he added,--"He thought his honour had a
kind heart, too kind; for that if Belzebub should come of a wet and dark
night, and knock at his honour's door, and just say in a humble voice
that he was weary and foot-sore, that his honour would be sure to take
him in, give him a bed, and a stiff tumbler of brandy and water, and
send for the farrier in the morning to fresh shoe him unknowingly; for
he would make him stoop, put his claws on the ground, and throw a
blanket over him, and make the farrier believe that, out of a whim, he
was only a shoeing a great big goat."

Gratian laughed at the whimsical idea of the exciseman, called him a
true and good spirit-gauger; then giving some sharp taps to his hip, his
knee, and his legs with his stick, rose from his seat, and said, "Come,
Curate, you and I must take a walk amongst these people, and see what we
can do: it is most t