Now, being returned to Nowelhurst, he held counsel with sister Eudoxia, who thoroughly deserved to have a vote after contributing so to the revenue. And the result of their Lateran—for they both were bricks—council was as follows: That John was bound, howsoever much it went against his proud stomach after his previous treatment, to make one last appeal from the father according to the spirit to the father according to the flesh, in favour of the unlucky son who was now condemned to exile, so as at least to send him away in a manner suitable to his birth. That, if this appeal were rejected, and the appellant treated unpleasantly—which was almost sure to follow—he could not, consistently with his honour and his clerical dignity, hold any longer the benefices (paltry as they were), the gifts of a giver now proved unkind. That thereupon Mr. Rosedew should first provide for Cradockʼs voyage so far as his humble means and small influence permitted; and after that should settle at Oxford, where he might get parochial duty, and where his old tutorial fame and repute (now growing European from a life of learning) would earn him plenty of pupils—— “And a professorship at least!” Miss Eudoxia broke in; for, much as she nagged at her brother, she was proud as could be of his knowledge. “Marry, ay, and a bishopric,” John answered, smiling pleasantly; “you have often menaced me, Doxy dear, with Jemimaʼs apron.” So, on a bright day in January, John Rosedew said to Jem Pottles, “Saddle me the horse, James.” And they saddled him the “horse”—not so called by his master through any false aggrandisement (such as maketh us talk of “the servants,” when we have only got a maid–of–all–work), but because the parson, in pure faith, regarded him as a horse of full equine stature and super–equine powers. After tightening up the girths, then—for that noble cob, at the saddling period, blew himself out with a large sense of humour (unappreciated by the biped who bestraddled him unwarily), an abdominal sense of humour which, as one touch of nature makes the whole world kin, induced the pigskin to circulate after the manner of a brass dogʼs collar—tush, I mean a dogʼs brass collar—in order to learn what the joke was down in those festive regions; therefore, having buckled him up six inches, till the witty nag creaked like a tight–laced maid, away rode the parson towards the Hall. Much liefer would he have walked by the well–known and pleasant footpath, but he felt himself bound, as one may say, to go in real style, sir.