“Will you take the horse back?” roared Houlditch.
“Certainly I will.”
“And repay me my £50?”
“Certainly not. I cashed your cheque, sir, last week, and with the money paid my butcher. A deal is a deal.”
The story comes with the authority of Jack Babbage, confirmed by Mrs. Froude, after her husband’s death. The incident occurred late in the rector’s life, after he was married.
Froude’s shamelessness was phenomenal. On one occasion he sold some keep on the glebe at Knowstone by auction, and a neighbouring farmer purchased a field of swede turnips under condition that he should remove them before a stated day.
The time limit was nearly expired, when Froude found the purchaser and the men in the field carting away the roots. The rain was falling in torrents, the crop was heavy, and it was a dirty job.
Froude rode into the field and shouted to the farmer (with the usual expletives with which he garnished his discourse), bidding him desist.
“But, sir,” said the man, “the time is nearly up, and I am bound to go on, or I shall forfeit my purchase.”
Froude then called him a—— fool, reminded him that he had known him from his cradle and his father before him, and bade him go home and wait for finer weather to pull his turnips and take them away.