'Well, at any rate,'
says the Missus, 'my boy shall be spared the temptation: an' I hope
'tis no sign he's betaken hisself to secret drinkin'!'
"Well, then, it was decanted: an' Hancock and Truslove, nothin'
doubtful, begun to lap it up like so much milk--the Vicar helpin',
and the Missus rather encouragin' than not, to the extent o' the
first decanter; thinkin' that 'twas good riddance to the stuff and
that if the Bishop turned up, he wouldn't look, as a holy man, for
more than ha'f a bottle. I'm tellin' it you as Sally told it to me.
She says that everything went on as easy as eggs in a nest until she
started to hand round the sweets, and all of a sudden she didn' know
what was happenin' at table, nor whether she was on her head or her
heels. . . . All I can tell you, sir, is that me and Battershall"--
Battershall is the vicarage gardener, stableman, and factotum--"was
waitin' in the stables, wonderin' when in the deuce the Bishop would
turn up, when we heard the whistle blown from the kitchen: which was
the signal. Out we ran; an' there to be sure was the Bishop comin'
down the drive in a hired trap. But between him and the house--
slap-bang, as you might say, in the middle of the lawn--was our two
Churchwardens, stripped mother-naked to the waist, and sparring: and
from the window just over the porch th' old Missus screaming out to
us to separate 'em.
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