everything that he could turn a penny out of; and he sold everybody whenever

he got the chance.  Such was the character of old Snooks.

How then came our good guileless friend Bumpkin to be associated with such a man on this beautiful Sunday morning?  I can only answer: there are things in this world which admit of no explanation.  This, so far as I am concerned, was one.

“They be pooty pork,” said Mr. Bumpkin.

“Middlin’,” rejoined the artful Snooks.

“They be a mighty dale more an middlin’, if you come to thic,” said the farmer.

“I’ve seen a good deal better,” remarked Snooks.  This was always his line of bargaining.

“Well, I aint,” returned Bumpkin, emphatically.  “Look at that un—why, he be fit for anything—a regler pictur.”

“What’s he worth?” said Snooks.  “Three arf crowns?”  That was Snooks’ way of dealing.

“Whisht!” exclaimed Bumpkin; “and four arf-crowns wouldn’t buy un.”  That was Bumpkin’s way.

Snooks expectorated and gave a roar, which he intended for a laugh, but which made every pig jump off its feet and dive into the straw.

“I tell ’ee what, maister Bumpkin, I doant want un”—that was his way again; “but I doant mind giving o’ thee nine shillings for that un.”

“Thee wunt ’ave un—not a farden less nor ten if I knows it; ye doant ’ave we loike that, nuther—ye beant sellin’ coals, maister Snooks—no, nor buyin’ pigs if I knows un.”

How far this conversation would have proceeded, and whether any serious altercation would have arisen, I know not; but at this moment a combination of

circumstances occurred to interrupt the would-be contracting parties.  First, Mrs. Bumpkin, who had been preparing the Sunday dinner, came across the yard with her apron full of cabbage-leaves and potato-peelings, followed by an immense number of chickens, while the ducks in the pond clapped their wings, and flew and ran with as much eagerness as though they were so many lawyers seeking some judicial appointment, and Mrs. Bumpkin were Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain; and they made as much row as a flock of Chancery Barristers arguing about costs.  Then came along, with many a grunt and squeak, a pig or two, who seemed to be enjoying a Sunday holiday in their best clothes, for they had just come out of a puddle of mud; then came slouching along, a young man whose name was Joe (or, more correctly speaking, Joseph Wurzel), a young man of about seventeen, well built, tall and straight, with a pleasant country farm-house face, a roguish black eye, even teeth, and a head of brown straight hair, that looked as if the only attention it ever received was an occasional trimming with a reap-hook, and a brush with a bush-harrow.

It was just feeding time; that was why Joe came up at this moment; and in addition to all these circumstances, there came faintly booming through the trees the ding of the old church bell, reminding Mr. Bumpkin that he must “goo and smarten oop a bit” for church.  He already had on his purple cord trousers, and, as Joe termed it, his hell-fire waistcoat with the flames coming out of it in all directions; but he had to put on his drab “cooat” and white smock-frock, and then walk half a mile before service commenced.  He always liked to be there before the Squire, and see him and his daughters, Miss Judith and Miss Mary, come in.

So he had to leave the question of the “walley” of the pig and attend to the more important interests of his immortal soul.  But now as he was going comes the point to which the reader’s special attention is directed.  He had got about six yards from the stye, or it may have been a little more, when Snooks cried out:

“I’ve bought un for nine and six.”

To which Mr. Bumpkin replied, without so much as turning his head—

“’Ave ur.”

Now this expression, according to Chitty on Contracts, would mean, “Have you, indeed? Mr. Snooks.”  But the extreme cunning of Josiah converted it into “’Ave un,” which, by the same learned authority would signify, “Very well, Mr. Snooks, you can have him.”

CHAPTER II.

The simplicity and enjoyments of a country life depicted.

A quiet day was Sunday on Southwood Farm.  Joe used to slumber in the meadows among the buttercups, or in the loft, or near the kitchen-fire, as the season and weather invited.  That is to say, until such time as, coming out of Sunday School (for to Sunday School he sometimes went) he saw one of the fairest creatures he had ever read about either in the Bible or elsewhere!  It was a very strange thing she should be so different from everybody else: not even the clergyman’s daughters—no, nor the Squire’s daughters, for the matter of that—looked half so nice as pretty Polly Sweetlove, the housemaid at the Vicar’s.

“Now look at that,” said Joe, as he went along the lane on that Sunday when he first beheld this divine creature.  “I’m danged if she beant about the smartest lookin o’ any on ’em.  Miss Mary beant nothing to her: it’s a dandelion to a toolup.”

So ever since that time Joe had slept less frequently in the hay-loft on a Sunday afternoon; and, be it said to his credit, had attended his church with greater punctuality.  The vicar took great notice of the lad’s religious tendencies, and had him to his night-school at the vicarage, in consequence; and certainly no vicar ever

knew a boy more regular in his attendance.  He was there waiting to go in ever so long before the school began, and was always the very last to leave the premises.

Often he would peep over the quick-set hedge into the kitchen-window, just to catch a glance of this lovely angel.  And yet, so far as he could tell, she had never looked at him.  When she opened the door, Joe always felt a thrill run through him as if some extraordinary thing had happened.  It was a kind of jump; and yet he had jumped many times before that: “it wasn’t the sort of jump,” he said, “as a chap gits either from bein’ frit or bein’ pleased.”  And what to make of it he didn’t know.  Then Polly’s cap was about the loveliest thing, next to Polly herself, he had ever seen.  It was more like a May blossom than anything else, or a beautiful butterfly on the top of a water-lily.  In fact, all the rural images of a rude but not inartistic mind came and went as this country boy thought of his beautiful Polly.  As he ploughed the field, if he saw a May-blossom in the hedgerow, it reminded him of Polly’s cap; and even the little gentle daisy was like Polly herself.  Pretty Polly was everywhere!

Mr. and Mrs. Bumpkin, on a fine Sabbath afternoon, would take their pastime in the open air.  First Mr. Bumpkin would take down his long churchwarden pipe from its rack on the ceiling, where it lay in close companionship with an ancient flint-gun; then he would fill it tightly, so as to make it last the longer, with tobacco from his leaden jar; and then, having lighted it, he and his wife would go out of the back door, through the garden and the orchard, and along by the side of the quiet river.  By their side, as a matter of course, came

Tim the Collie (named after Mrs. Bumpkin’s grandfather Timothy), who knew as well as possible every word that was being said.  If Mrs. Bumpkin only asked, “Where is Betsy?” (that was the head Alderney cow) Tim would bark and