“Exby: he succeeded a very different man, old Wright, of whom many stories are told. It is not a college living, but Wright had been a don for many years, and, having a good bit of money, bought Exby sooner than wait any longer for Zedtown, his fat college living. He never married, and he kept up his Common Room habits, especially including the rubber, which was the delight of his life. But he was a very prudent man, and he didn’t like losing his money. If he was losing, he went to bed early: if he was winning, he would sit up all night, or as long as he could get the other men to sit up. One night, they say, he had a great run of luck, and went on playing till after the early hours of the morning: in fact, it was about five, when they heard a most fearful rumbling in the chimney, increasing in noise, till at last with a cloud of soot a black apparition in human form descended, and stood on the hearthstone.
“I may tell you in confidence that it was only the sweep: his proceedings were perfectly in order, but the servants had omitted to notify the Rector that the visit was impending.
“The gamblers, and especially the Rector, reasonably concluded that it was the Prince of Darkness, who had come to carry them off; and they started from the table. Old Wright dropped on his knees, and held up his trembling hands with a goodly assortment of trumps and court-cards, and stammered out:
“‘Spare me, oh, spare me, till I have finished the rubber.’”
All the “Ruri-deacons,” as Miller called them, knew the story; but familiarity with it even now cannot hinder me from laughing in sleepless hours of the night at the picture of the blear-eyed four, with shattered nerves, clinging to the table, and gazing at the still more startled sweep.
“I knew Wright,” said one on my right: “he told me he used to keep his store of money in £5 notes which he hid in a volume of Tillotson’s sermons in his study. I asked, ‘Why Tillotson?’ and he said, ‘Because it is not likely that a burglar would be fond of sermons, and if he was, he wouldn’t want to read Tillotson.’”
It needs some acquaintance with Tillotson to get the full aroma of this appreciation.
“He was a great man for schools, Inspector,” said another: “used to do all the thrashing for the schoolmistress; and one time he did his duty to a boy so nobly that the mother came to complain. ‘You know, parson,’ she said, ‘as Scripture says as a man should be merciful to his beast.’
“‘But he wasn’t my beast, Mrs. Green,’ retorted old Wright: and she was so much pleased with the homely repartee that she retired chuckling.”
“Have you met O’Brien’s new Curate, Rogers, yet?” said Johnson to the Rural Dean. “A very different man from our friend. He told me of a singular experience that befell a fellow student: he was, you know, formerly a Dissenter of sorts, and was educated at one of their colleges.”