ou should speak up, or what art perched up aloft there for.
But, however, as you scollards are rayther testy, I know, in being taken
up before folks, I mun beg thy pardon for 't'arno."[C]

[C] For what I know.

"O, Mr. Darbyshire," said the clergyman, with much dignity, "that will
not do, I assure you. I cannot pass over such conduct in such a manner.
I shall take another course with you."

"O, just as tha' woot. I've axed thy pardon, haven't I? and if that
wunna do, why, thou mun please thysen!"

Johnny actually appeared very likely to get a proper castigation this
time; but, however it was, he certainly escaped. The parishioners
advised the clergyman to take no notice of the offence,--everybody,
they said, knew Johnny, and if he called him into the spiritual court,
he would be just as bold and saucy, and might raise a good deal of
public scandal. The clergyman, who, unfortunately, was but like too many
country clergymen of the time, addicted to a merry glass in the village
public-house, thought perhaps that this was only too likely, and so the
matter dropped.

For twenty years did Johnny Darbyshire thus give free scope to tongue
and hand in his parish. He ruled paramount over wife, children, house,
servants, parish, and everybody. He made work go on like the flying
clouds of March; and at fair and market, at meeting and vestry, he had
his fling and his banter at the expense of his neighbors, as if the
world was all his own, and would never come to an end. But now came an
event, arising, as so often is the case, out of the merest trifle, that
more than all exhibited the indomitable stiffness and obstinacy of his
character.

Johnny Darbyshire had some fine, rich meadow-land, on the banks of the
river Derwent, where he took in cattle and horses to graze during the
summer. Hither a gentleman had sent a favorite and valuable blood mare
to run a few months with her foal. He had stipulated that the greatest
care should be taken of both mare and foal, and that no one, on any
pretence whatever, should mount the former. All this Johnny Darbyshire
had most fully promised. "Nay, he was as fond of a good bit of
horse-flesh as any man alive, and he would use mare and foal just as if
they were his own."

This assurance, which sounded very well indeed, was kept by Johnny, as
it proved, much more to the letter than the gentleman intended. To his
great astonishment, it was not long before he one day saw Johnny
Darbyshire come