OLD TETCOTT HOUSE
After that he had no love for parsons of the Church or indeed ministers of any denomination, for every one of them, he said, would bury him alive, if they could. Once an itinerant Methodist preacher came across him and asked his way. Black John volunteered to show him a short cut across the park, and led him to a paddock, in which his master kept a favourite bull. He thrust the preacher into it and fastened the gate. What ensued is matter of guess-work. A yell and a bellow were heard, and some object was seen projected into the air over the hedge. Soon after Black John appeared at the Hall with a white tie in his hands, which he gave to his master, and said, “This be the vag-ends of the minister—all I could recover.”
“When gout and old age had imprisoned Mr. Arscott in his easy chair, Black John nuzzled among the ashes of the vast wood fires of the hearth, or lay coiled upon his rug like some faithful mastiff watching every look and gesture of his master; starting up to fill the pipe or tankard of old ale, and then crouching again. At the squire’s death and funeral, the agony of the misshapen retainer was unappeasable. He had to be removed by force from the door of the vault, and then he utterly refused to depart from the neighbourhood of the grave. He made himself another lair, near the churchyard wall, and there he sobbed away the brief remnant of his days.”
The story goes that on one long and tremendous chase, Dogget running by his master’s horse—
“How far do you make it?” said Simon the son.
“The day that’s declining will shortly be done.”
“We’ll follow till Doomsday,” quoth Arscott,—before
They hear the Atlantic with menacing roar.
On this occasion the chase continued to Penkenner.
Through Whitstone, and Poundstock, St. Genny’s they run,