The manner of it was thus. The parson drew from his pocket a leg of
the fox they had killed that day, and, stinking, filthy, and bloody as it
was, squeezed and stirred it in a four-handled tyg of claret. In this evil
compound the Squire solemnly gave us the huntsman's toast:
"_Horses sound. Dogs hearty,
Earth's stopped, and Foxes plenty_."
The parson then hiccoughed a song for which he should have been put in
the stocks, after which Mr. Wicks, with three empty bottles and three
knives to stand for the gallows, gave us a vivid account of the
turning-off of the famous Captain Suck Ensor, who kicked and twitched for
ten minutes before his own claimed him.
It was five o'clock next morning before my courier returned with Nance
Lousely and her father. I had gone to sleep in the Squire's elbow-chair
before the hall fire, with the zealous thief-takers in attendance, turn
and turn about, as sentries over me, fifty guineas being well worth
guarding. The butler watched at the door, wakefully anxious to earn the
crown I had promised him. The noise he made in unchaining and unbolting
the door awakened me, and it warmed my heart to see Nance standing timidly
just inside the hall, her hand in her father's, till she spied me, when
she broke away and ran up to me.
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