Jacob Philpot immediately arose, and shook the stranger warmly by the hand, and told him, that he should be happy to see him whenever he came that way again; and then nodding to Mr. Stanhope and the landlady, went out at the front door, mounted the horse that stood there, and rode away. “Where’s the fellow going?” cried Mrs. Philpot; “Hillo! Jacob, I say!”--“Well mother,” said the Reverend Mr. Stanhope, “what’s the matter now?”--but Mrs. Philpot had reached the front of the house, and continued to shout. “Hillo! hillo, come back, I tell you!”--“That woman is always doing some strange thing or other,” observed Mr. Stanhope to the stranger “What on earth can possess her to go calling after the parson in that manner?”--“I declare he’s rode off with squire Jones’s horse,” cried Mrs. Philpot, re-entering the house. “To be sure he has,” said Mr. Stanhope; “he borrowed it on purpose to go to the Old Boar.”--“Did he?” exclaimed the landlady; “and without telling me a word about it! But I’ll Old Boar him I promise you!”--“Don’t make such a fool of yourself, mother,” said the parson; “it can’t signify twopence to you where he goes.”--“Can’t it?” rejoined Mrs. Philpot. “I’ll tell you what, your worship-”--“Don’t worship me woman,” exclaimed the teetotum landlord parson; “worship, what nonsense now! Why, you’ve been taking your drops again this morning, I think. Worship, indeed! To be sure, I did once, like a fool, promise to worship _you_; but if my time was to come over again, I know what-. But, never mind now--don’t you see it’s twelve o’clock? Come, quick, let us have what there is to eat, and then we’ll have a comfortable pipe under the tree. What say you, Sir?”--“With all my heart,” replied the elderly stranger. The latter hoped they should have the pleasure of Mrs. Philpot’s company; but she looked somewhat doubtfully till the parson said, “Come, come, mother, don’t make a bother about it.” Therefore she smoothed her apron and made one at the dinner table, and conducted herself with so much precision, that the teetotum parson looked upon her with considerable surprise, while she regarded him with no less, inasmuch as he talked in a very unclerical manner; and, among other strange things, swore, that his wife was as “drunk as blazes” the night before, and winked at her, and behaved altogether in a style very unbecoming a minister in his own parish.