"Rat-catching!" ejaculated the squire, pausing abruptly in the mastication of a drumstick. "To be sure, my dear sir: don't you remember that rats once came under the forest laws--a minor species of venison? 'Rats and mice, and such small deer,' eh?--Shakspeare, you know. Our ancestors ate rats;" ("The nasty fellows!" shuddered Miss Julia in a parenthesis) "and owls, you know, are capital mousers----" "I've seen a howl," said Mr. Peters; "there's one in the Sohological Gardens,--a little hook-nosed chap in a wig,--only it's feathers and----" Poor P. was destined never to finish a speech. "_Do_ be quiet!" cried the authoritative voice, and the would-be naturalist shrank into his shell like a snail in the "Sohological Gardens." "You should read Blount's 'Jocular Tenures,' Mr. Ingoldsby," pursued Simpkinson. "A learned man was Blount! Why, sir, his Royal Highness the Duke of York once paid a silver horse-shoe to Lord Ferrers----" "I've heard of him," broke in the incorrigible Peters; "he was hanged at the Old Bailey in a silk rope for shooting Doctor Johnson." The antiquary vouchsafed no notice of the interruption; but, taking a pinch of snuff, continued his harangue. "A silver horse-shoe, sir, which is due from every scion of royalty who rides across one of his manors; and if you look into the penny county histories, now publishing by an eminent friend of mine, you will find that Langhale in Co. Norf. was held by one Baldwin _per saltum sufflatum, et pettum_; that is, he was to come every Christmas into Westminster Hall, there to take a leap, cry hem! and----" "Mr. Simpkinson, a glass of sherry?" cried Tom Ingoldsby hastily. "Not any, thank you, sir. This Baldwin, surnamed _Le ----_" "Mrs. Ogleton challenges you, sir; she insists upon it," said Tom still more rapidly; at the same time filling a glass, and forcing it on the sçavant, who, thus arrested in the very crisis of his narrative, received and swallowed the potation as if it had been physic. "What on earth has Miss Simpkinson discovered there?" continued Tom; "something of interest. See how fast she is writing." The diversion was effectual; every one looked towards Miss Simpkinson, who, far too ethereal for "creature comforts," was seated apart on the dilapidated remains of an altar-tomb, committing eagerly to paper something that had strongly impressed her: the air,--the eye in a fine frenzy rolling,--all betokened that the divine _afflatus_ was come. Her father rose, and stole silently towards her. "What an old boar!" muttered young Ingoldsby; alluding, perhaps, to a slice of brawn which he had just begun to operate upon, but which, from the celerity with which it disappeared, did not seem so very difficult of mastication.