Such was Dame Fripp, whom Mr. Gilfil, riding leisurely in top-boots and spurs from doing duty at Knebley one warm Sunday afternoon, observed sitting in the dry ditch near her cottage, and by her side a large pig, who, with that ease and confidence belonging to perfect friendship, was lying with his head in her lap, and making no effort to play the agreeable beyond an occasional grunt.

‘Why, Mrs. Fripp,’ said the Vicar, ’I didn’t know you had such a fine pig.  You’ll have some rare flitches at Christmas!’

’Eh, God forbid!  My son gev him me two ‘ear ago, an’ he’s been company to me iver sin’.  I couldn’t find i’ my heart to part wi’m, if I niver knowed the taste o’ bacon-fat again.’

’Why, he’ll eat his head off, and yours too.  How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?’

‘O, he picks a bit hisself wi’ rootin’, and I dooant mind doing wi’out to gi’ him summat.  A bit o’ company’s meat an’ drink too, an’ he follers me about, and grunts when I spake to’m, just like a Christian.’

Mr. Gilfil laughed, and I am obliged to admit that he said good-bye to Dame Fripp without asking her why she had not been to church, or making the slightest effort for her spiritual edification.  But the next day he ordered his man David to take her a great piece of bacon, with a message, saying, the parson wanted to make sure that Mrs. Fripp would know the taste of bacon-fat again.  So, when Mr. Gilfil died, Dame Fripp manifested her gratitude and reverence in the simply dingy fashion I have mentioned.

You already suspect that the Vicar did not shine in the more spiritual functions of his office; and indeed, the utmost I can say for him in this respect is, that he performed those functions with undeviating attention to brevity and despatch.  He had a large heap of short sermons, rather yellow and worn at the edges, from which he took two every Sunday, securing perfect impartiality in the selection by taking them as they came, without reference to topics; and having preached one of these sermons at Shepperton in the morning, he mounted his horse and rode hastily with the other in his pocket to Knebley, where he officiated in a wonderful little church, with a checkered pavement which had once rung to the iron tread of military monks, with coats of arms in clusters on the lofty roof, marble warriors and their wives without noses occupying a large proportion of the area, and the twelve apostles, with their heads very much on one side, holding didactic ribbons, painted in fresco on the walls.  Here, in an absence of mind to which he was prone, Mr. Gilfil would sometimes forget to take off his spurs before putting on his surplice, and only become aware of the omission by feeling something mysteriously tugging at the skirts of that garment as he stepped into the reading-desk.  But the Knebley farmers would as soon have thought of criticizing the moon as their pastor.  He belonged to the course