FIN AND FUR ON SURREY HILLS. 91 



mother has a weakness for parsons, you know, so 

 I was all right there. 



"'Do you say home-brewed, my dear friend?' 

 he went on ; ' never since my boyhood have I 

 tasted that fine drink of Old England. I feel my 

 youth come back at the very name of it. Yes ; 

 gladly will I accept of your hospitality;' and a 

 lot more stuff of the same sort — about lines in 

 pleasant places and the like. Well, mother laid 

 the cloth in the best room, and she even put her 

 own best bib and tucker on, in honour of the 

 clerical gentleman. He washed his hands, and 

 in he came ; looked it over, and then said a grace. 

 After that he set to work, praised our beer, called 

 it nectar for the immortals, emptied the jug, — three 

 pints it held, — and praised mother's bread and 

 cheese too. He talked us right over, both of us — 

 asked us if we went to church. I told him mother 

 did, wet or fine. Then he got on his legs and 

 gave us a bit of a sermon on true religion and 

 outward forms, and the grand old Church of Eng- 

 land, finishing up with Christian charity, which 

 was, he said, just what he had had from us that 

 day. 'On my return to my vicarage,' he said, 'I 



