PARSON (looking sheepish).—“Indeed, Squire, I was only asking him what had become of his donkey, an unoffending creature.”
SQUIRE.—“Unoffending! Upset me amidst a thistle-bed in my own village green! I remember it. Well, what did he say had become of the donkey?”
PARSON.—“He said but one word; but that showed all the vindictiveness of his disposition. He said it with a horrid wink, that made my blood run cold. ‘What’s become of your poor donkey?’ said I, and he answered—”
SQUIRE.—“Go on. He answered—”
PARSON.—“‘Sausages.’”
SQUIRE.—“Sausages! Like enough; and sold to the poor; and that’s what the poor will come to if they listen to such revolutionizing villains. Sausages! Donkey sausages!” (spitting)—“‘T is bad as eating one another; perfect cannibalism.”
Leonard, who had been thrown into grave thought by the history of Sprott and the village genius, now pressing the parson’s hand, asked permission to wait on him before Mr. Dale quitted London; and was about to withdraw, when the parson, gently detaining him, said, “No; don’t leave me yet, Leonard,—I have so much to ask you, and to talk about. I shall be at leisure shortly. We are just now going to call on a relation of the squire’s, whom you must recollect, I am sure,—Captain Higginbotham—Barnabas Higginbotham. He is very poorly.”
“And I am sure he would take it kind in you to call too,” said the squire, with great good-nature.
LEONARD.—“Nay, sir, would not that be a great liberty?”
SQUIRE.—“Liberty! To ask a poor sick gentleman how he is? Nonsense. And I say, Sir, perhaps, as no doubt you have been living in town, and know more of newfangled notions than I do,—perhaps you can tell us whether or not it is all humbug,—that new way of doctoring people.”