1 1 2 Saddle and Sirloin 



value of his preferment, he only responded by a full 

 list from the Churchman's Guide of " the sinecures 

 held by your lordship." Morning service and sermon 

 seemed with him a matter of barely an hour and ten 

 minutes, and an egg and a soda-powder formed his 

 Sabbath midday portion. His conversation was not 

 so homoeopathic, but the pace was the same. He 

 was as staunch to his principles as his church brethren, 

 Mr. Stanley and Mr. Ramshay, and on an election 

 morning the Liberals knew without canvassing that he 

 would arrive in his chaise at the Carlisle booth and 

 poll for them in the first ten minutes. John Hodgson, 

 the clerk, was another equally steadfast pillar of the 

 Church, and right proud of his office and his pitch- 

 pipe. His solemn shakes of the head, as he led the 

 responses and the choir, were most telling ; and he 

 took care that there should be no mistake as to his 

 professional status when he wrote to the railway 

 directors for a gate-keeper's place, and assured them 

 that " / and my stout sons cart not only keep but cany 

 the gates ; yea even the gates of Gaza!' 



A strong taste for letter writing once cost him a 

 world of anxiety. He was one of the parties to a 

 chancery suit, and nothing would serve him, but he 

 must drop a line to Lord Lyndhurst who was then on 

 the Woolsack. No notice was taken of it, but for 

 weeks, one neighbour or another " learned in the law" 

 kept suggesting that he had been guilty of contempt 

 of court, a phrase of dreadful import which " hung 

 about me like a cold." A knot of farmers were wont 

 to make a point of taking counsel with him on the 

 subject among the tombstones before morning service, 

 and as they invariably summed-up with " Joint, your 

 life's forfeit," his desk-devotions for several sabbaths 

 were of rather a wandering class, and he hardly dared 

 to meet a postman on the week days. But we must 

 quit these parish elders. 



Our first halt was at the Milton Station, and we 



