"What is the matter?"
"That confounded mischievous colt!" cried James.
"I declare!" exclaimed Mr. Royden, suddenly, "that cunning brute has got hold of your coat, Father Brighthopes!"
"Ha!" said the clergyman. "My coat? That will never do, at all. Where is the little rascal?"
"Don't chase him, James!" cried Mr. Royden. "You will only make the matter worse."
But James did not hear. The colt, with the clergyman's coat between his teeth, was capering over the hill. James ran after him, throwing pebble-stones and shouting, while the hired laborers leaned their great strong arms upon the fence, and laughed broadly at the fun.
"What a playful animal!" exclaimed Father Brighthopes, laughing as heartily as any. "He thinks he is doing a wonderfully pretty trick."
Suddenly the colt stopped, dropped the garment, and, looking round at James, whom he had distanced by some twenty rods, darted from the top of the hill. This was not all. While the youth ran panting up the acclivity, he returned to the coat, and began to tear it with his teeth and fore-feet; but James put an end to that fun, by sending a well-aimed stone to the very center of his neck, upon which the mischievous animal snatched up the garment again, and went galloping off with it to the further extremity of the field.
Mr. Royden, Chester and one of the hired men, had to go to the assistance of James, and drive the colt into a corner, before the booty could be recovered. When it was finally seized by Chester from under his very feet, it was not worth much. It had been shamefully trampled and torn.
But Father Brighthopes laughed pleasantly, as they brought it back to him.