England and its ministers, and in particular upon dear little exemplary unoffending old Dr. Tatham, whom he described as "battening upon cant, hypocrisy, and extortion." Strange and melancholy to relate, this novel mode of procedure on the part of Mr. Mudflint for a while succeeded. In vain did the white-haired and learned vicar preach his very best sermons, and in his very best manner--he beheld his church thinning, while the chapel of Mr. Mudflint was filled. And, as he went about the village in the zealous, and vigilant, and affectionate discharge of his pastoral duties, he perceived symptoms, now and then, of a grievously altered manner towards him, on the part of those who had once hailed his approach and his ministrations with a kind of joyful reverence and cordiality. Mudflint had also, in furtherance of his purpose of bitter hostility, in concert with his worthy coadjutors the Bloodsucks, stirred up two or three persons in the parish to resist the doctor's claim to tithe, and to offer harassing obstructions to the collecting of it. In justice to the Church, and to his successors, he could not permit his rights to be thus questioned and denied with impunity--and thus, to his sore grief, the worthy old vicar found himself, for the first time in his life, involved in a couple of lawsuits, which he feared, even if he won them, would ruin him. It may be imagined that Mudflint's discomfiture at the assizes was calculated to send him, like a scotched snake, writhing, hissing, and snapping, through the village, at all that came in his way. It is possible that Mr. Gammon was not so fully apprised of all these doings, as is now the reader; yet he saw and heard enough to lead him to suspect that things were going a little too far. He took, however, no steps towards effecting an abatement or discontinuance of them. Just at present, moreover, he was peculiarly reluctant to interfere with any of the proceedings of the Messrs. Bloodsuck, and confined himself to receiving their report as to some arrangements which he had desired them to carry into effect. In the first place, he did not disclose the existence of his heavy and newly created rent-charge, but gave them to understand that Mr. Titmouse's circumstances were such as to make it requisite to extract as much from the property as could possibly be obtained, by raising the rents--by effecting a further mortgage upon the property, and by a sale of all the timber that was fit for felling. It was found necessary to look out for new tenants to one or two of the largest farms on the estate, as the old tenants declared themselves unable to sustain the exorbitant rents which they were called upon to pay; so orders were given to advertise for tenants, in the county, and other newspapers. Then Mr. Gammon went all over the estate, to view the condition of the timber, attended by the sullen and reluctant wood-bailiff, who, though he retained his