76 LIFE OF MYTTON. 



" Dear Will, — I have changed my mind about 

 giving you the living ; I find it J2ist keeps my hounds." 



But of course the good Chaplain had in his time to 

 put up with some horse-play. Mytton once pushed 

 him into the fish pool on their return from church, 

 as he also ducked Will Staples, the whipper-in, and 

 Tinkler his stud groom. A more serious matter, how- 

 ever, was when he laid the wire of a spring-gun in 

 Mr. Owen's path on his way to morning service ; the 

 shock being so great that the victim of "the joke" 

 was unable to meet his congregation. 



The Chaplain did not long survive his friend and 

 patron : and it is generally believed that the accumu- 

 lated distresses, the fallen state, and the miserable end 

 of the one, accelerated the death of the other. At all 

 events, I am informed that the words "poor Mytton^'' 

 were nearly the last the Halston Chaplain uttered. 



