306 Saddle and Sirloin. 



climbed along the sill to get at a nest in the eaves ; 

 but on the point as to whether he had really tied up 

 his arm in a sling and tried to hatch an egg in his 

 armpit, and was within four days of being a mother 

 when a schoolfellow pushed him and broke it,- we did 

 not find him decisive. He seemed content to let the 

 story rest in the shape which it then bore. We 

 loved best to see him in his most inspired attitude, 

 watching in the October evenings whether the rooks 

 would take their regular departure for the season 

 after their evening meal for Nostell Wood, or linger 

 one or more days " over the ninth." He would 

 almost drag you out, and stand bare-headed on the 

 lawn long after nightfall, listening to the quack of the 

 mallard, and telling each fresh water-fowl by its note, as 

 it settled on the lake, with all the quickness of Fine Ear. 

 The late Archbishop of Canterbury, who not un- 

 frequently paid him a visit from Bishopthorpe or the 

 Palace at Ripon, must have smiled, as did many others, 

 when he scaled that wonderful staircase with its pic- 

 tured walls, and found on the two landings, among 

 cases of humming birds, toucans, and the other results 

 of his Wanderings, the " English Reformation zoologi- 

 cally illustrated." If there was an uglier monkey 

 than usual in the menagerie-offerings which were made 

 to him, he stuffed it to represent Old Nick, or labelled 

 it " John Knox." Titus Oates, Cranmer, and Bishop 

 Burnet each found their equivalent very low down in 

 the scale of reptiles ; " Mother Law, Church, and her 

 Dissenting Fry," looked like a group of toad dancers ; 

 and as for " Queen Bess at Lunch," it was a perfectly 

 appalling combination of lizards and newts, and other 

 unhallowed things. Beetles and flies, as being a special 

 emblem of Satan, also bore their part in this strange 

 medley of polemics ; but still there was no lack of 

 high-bred courtesy on his part to those of another 

 creed. You thought only of his deep devotion when 

 you saw him bend his shrunken form before the Eu« 



