566 THE VILLAGE. 



I switched through the raspers in my descent, with no other mis- 

 fortune than a few scratches, and the loss of certain portions of my 

 rags alighting knee-deep in the black unctuous bottom of the broad 

 brook, which glode, noiseless and invisible beneath the briars. Fear- 

 ing that I might have left a bit of my parti- coloured apparel on the 

 thorns, so visible as to reveal my retreat, I paddled with as little 

 splashing as possible down the brook ; but soon felt so completely 

 overcome by fatigue, that I could not resist laying my head on a 

 beautiful bit of moss, which, overhanging a small rocky ledge, fell 

 in natural drapery down the bank. I had neither the strength or in- 

 clination to draw my legs out of the mud my repose might therefore 

 be termed amphibious. 



I seemed to have but just closed my eyes the voices of my 

 rascally pursuers had scarcely died away when I was aroused by 

 the deep well-known notes of a brace of big frightful foreign hounds 

 which the Squire usually kept chained, among other zoological cu- 

 riosities in his court-yard : they were evidently on the track which 

 I had taken from the brow of Transom Torr. 



( To be continued.} 



THE VILLAGE ANTIQUARIAN. 



W is certainly a charming village, 



Pleasant, retired, and still as need to be, 

 The folks are nearly all engaged in tillage 

 An honest race, although of low degree, 

 Not like your London poor who live by pillage, 

 Pale, wretched-looking things not fit to see, 

 But labourers working hard from morn till e'en, 

 And on the Sabbath, sober, neat, and clean. 



The village church owes much to situation, 



'Tis a rude pile or 'twas so when I knew it 



The churchyard was as green as a plantation, 



With avenues of noble lime-trees through it : 



In short, the village won the admiration 



Of travelling gentlefolks whe came to view it. 



And then dame Nature grew such fields of corn there ! 



I should perhaps just add though I was born there. 



Two genteel families in the place resided, 

 And let me add, as men of village note, 

 The cobbler, who at funerals presided 

 As sexton and could argue and mis-quote 

 The parson, who his flock full gently guided, 

 So gently, that he seemed to guide them not 

 And last, not least, but worthy of the van, 

 The shop-keeper, an upright downright man. 



The parson lov'd his glass of purple poison, 

 His tithe, his horse, his fowling-piece, and dog, 

 As much as any man I e'er set eyes on 

 In short, he reckoned, like a polished hog, 



