"Turned thee out, and took thy name off the plan for comin' to see me." "Well, of all the unneighbourly things as iver I heerd!" exclaimed Sim. "To go and talk that clat to a straanger." "Outer kindness to him," said the landlord. "It was a kind o' hint, and he took it, for I was thinking of his bishop, and he took it direckly, for he says, says he, `Well, I hope I shan't hev my name took off my plan for coming to see you, Mr Robinson,' he says. `I hope not, sir,' I says. `Perhaps you'll take a glass o' wine, sir,' I says. `No, Mr Robinson,' he says, `I'll take a glass--gill you call it--o' your ale.' And if he didn't sit wi' me for a good hour, and drink three gills o' ale and smoke three pipes wi' me, same as you might, ony he talked more sensible." "Well, he's a pretty parson, he is," sneered Sim. "You let him be; he ain't a bad sort at all," said the landlord, quietly. "Ha, ha!" laughed Sim. "He's got howlt o' you too, Robinson." "Mebbe he hev; mebbe he hevn't," said the landlord. "Did he ask you to go to church?" "Well, not azackly," said the landlord; "but he said he should be very happy to see me theer, just like astin' me to his house." "Ho, ho!" laughed Sim; "and some day we shall have the Bull and Cowcumber at church." "What are yow laughin' at, yo' maulkin?" cried the landlord. "Why, I'd go ony wheer to sit and listen to a sensible man talk." "Aw raight, aw raight, Robinson; don't be put out," said Sim; "but I didn't think as yow'd be got over so easy." "Who's got over?" said the landlord. "Not I indeed." "Well," said Sim, "did he say anything more?" "Say? yes, he's full o' say, and it's good sorter say. I ast him if he'd like to see the farm, and he said he would, and I took him out wheer the missus was busy wi' her pancheons, making bread and syling the milk, and he stopped and talked to her." "But yow didn't take him out into your moocky owd crewyard, did yo'?" "Moocky crewyard indeed! but I just did, and I tell you what, Sim Slee, he's as good a judge of a beast as iver I see." "And then yow showed him the new mare," said Sim, with a grin. "I did," said the landlord. "`Horncastle?' he says, going up to her and opening her mouth. `Raight,' I says. `Six year owd,' he says; and then he felt her legs and said he should like to see her paces, and I had Jemmy to give her a run in the field. `She's Irish,' he says. `How do you know?' I says--trying him like to trap him. `By that turn-up nose,' he says, `and that wild saucy look about the eye and head.' `You're raight, parson,' I says. And then he says, `she was worth sixty pun, every pun of it;' and I told him as I got her for nine and thirty, and ten shillings back. I tell you what, Sim Slee,--Parson's a man, every inch on him. As for the missus, she's that pleased, she sent him ower a pun o' boother this morning from our best Alderney."