He was a great orator at the Gridiron beershop in the lane which runs round one part of my Lord Warwick’s park, and it was said that old Gale—­such was his name—­had picked up most of his education from his own speeches.  Gale was also the lawyer of the village—­he could tell everybody what his rights were, if anybody had any besides Gale; but he declared he had been done out of his rights by a man who had lent his old father some money on the bit of land I am coming to.

As we went along, what should we see but a rat!  I knew what he was in a moment, although I had never seen such a thing before, and knew I had to hunt him.  My lord cries, “Cis!—­rat, Jack—­rats!”

Away I went after the rat—­I did not care what his name was—­and Sir Henry after me, with all the exuberance he used to show when he was following the “Quorn.”  Presently we heard the dreadful orator’s voice using language only uttered, I am glad to say, amongst men.

“Where the h—­l are you coming to like this?” he cried.

I forgot to say that our marshal was with us, and of course he took upon himself to explain how matters stood; indeed, it was one of his duties when Judges went out a-ratting to explain who they were.  So when we arrived at the place where they were talking together, I heard the dreadful man say,—­

“Judge o’ th’ land!  He ain’t much of a judge o’ th’ land to tear my flowers to pieces like that.  Look at these ’ere toolips.”

The marshal explained how that it was for the improvement of Sir Henry Hawkins’s health that a little fresh air was taken every morning.

“Lookee ‘ere,” says Gale, “I didn’t know it wur the Judge doin’ me the honour to tear my flower-beds to pieces.  I bin workin’ at these ’ere beds for months, and here they are spilt in a minit; but I tell ee what, Orkins or no Orkins, he ain’t gwine to play hell with my flower-beds like that ’ere.  If he wants the ground for public improvement, as you call it, well, you can take it under the Act.  There’s room enough for improvement, I dessay.”

Now, instead of his lordship sending the man to prison, as I thought to be sure he must do, he speaks to him as mild as a lamb, and tells him he commends his spirit, and actually asks him what he valued the flowers at.  A Judge condescending to do that!  This mollified the old man’s temper, and turned away his flowery wrath, so he said at once he wasn’t the man to make a profit out o’ the circum_starnce_; but right was right, and wrong worn’t no man’s right, with a great many other proverbs of a like nature, which are as hard to get rid of amongst men and women as precedents amongst Judges; and then the old man, much against his will and inclination, had a sovereign forced upon him by our marshal, which he put into his pocket, and then accompanied us to the gate.

Now came this remarkable circumstance.  When we got back to our lodgings after being “churched,” what should we find but a beautiful nosegay of cut flowers in our drawing-room from old Gale, and every morning came a similar token of his good-nature and admiration while we were there, and the same whenever we went on that circuit.