Think of poor Burrell’s shock, Of Nature’s debt to see his hens all payers, And laid in death as Everlasting Layers, With Bantam’s small Ex-Emperor, the Cock, In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle, Giving, undone by Cockle, a last Cackle! To see as stiff as stone, his unlive stock, It really was enough to move his block. Down on the floor he dash’d, with horror big, Mr. Bell’s third wife’s mother’s coachman’s wig; And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble, Burst out with natural emphasis enough, And voice that grief made tremble, Into that very speech of sad Macduff-- “What!--all my pretty chickens and their dam, At one fell swoop!-- Just when I’d bought a coop To see the poor lamented creatures cram!” After a little of this mood, And brooding over the departed brood, With razor he began to ope each craw, Already turning black, as black as coals; When lo! the undigested cause he saw-- “Pison’d by goles!” To Mrs. W.’s luck a contradiction, Her window still stood open to conviction; And by short course of circumstantial labour, He fix’d the guilt upon his adverse neighbour;-- Lord! how he rail’d at her: declaring now, He’d bring an action ere next Term of Hilary, Then, in another moment, swore a vow, He’d make her do pill-penance in the pillory! She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard, Lapp’d in a paradise of tea and cream; When up ran Betty with a dismal scream-- “Here’s Mr. Burrell, Ma’am, with all his farm-yard!” Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending, With all the warmth that iron and a barber Can harbour; To dress the head and front of her offending, The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking; In short, he made her pay him altogether, In hard cash, very _hard_, for ev’ry feather, Charging of course, each Bantam as a Dorking; Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple, So the sad dame unpocketing her loss, Had nothing left but to sit hands across, And see her poultry, “going down ten couple.” [Illustration: HALFPENNY HATCH.]