The Pride of Our Village. 63 



villages waited from two o'clock in the afternoon till ten 

 o'clock at night at the railway station, near the big house 

 for the owner's return, a few clays after the Leger ? How 

 they took the horses out of the owner's carriage and 

 dragged him home, and illuminated the park, and burnt 

 tar-barrels ? And this was all done by those who probably 

 amongst them all had not five pounds on the race, or any 

 other race in the world, and it was done simply because the 

 owner was a kind neighbour and honest sportsman. 



I do not believe there is any better evidence of a '' mens 

 Sana in coiyore sano " than for people to take an almost 

 mad interest in any honest sport or amusement. If one 

 only com^^ai-es those who do so with the Mawworms who 

 are always holding meetings about their neighbours' doings, 

 he will see which are of the happiest frame of mind. 2^o 

 doubt many of them are honest, but I have no doubt also 

 that to many of those who attend the Exeter Hall meet- 

 ings, and Moody and Sankey meetings, and the like, the 

 excitement is the real object, bar one — as their wickeder (?) 

 brethren would say, — and that bar one is love of vulgar 

 notoriety and self-glory, and seeing their names in the so- 

 called reHgious papers. I suppose the fact is that I hate 

 your amateur religionist who whistles through his nose like 

 a sandpiper, and bothers me about his ideas of my state of 

 mind, and foretells my perdition because I like to see two 

 noble animals have a fair struggle for victory for the 

 struggler's sake, as much as I hate the man who would be 

 vitterly indifferent whether the competitors are horses, dogs, 

 pigs, cows, or two drops of rain running down a glass, so 

 long as he can rob someone. The Mawworms are like the 

 Puritans of old, who, according to Lord Macaulay, went 

 regularly wild about bear-baiting, not because it hurt the 

 bear, but because it pleased the people. 



There is an anecdote about our favourite which I know 



