The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1883-08-30

pdrI1-cOlDre1 SUCKS, one at each enQ OF Gne
plot. was this? A horrors SO terrible
that the Dean stood still, and that remark
able change came over i'm which we have
described.
Great men rise to the occasion. 1t was
only a moment he stood thus and looked.
Then he turned and walked rapidly back to
a house he had just passed. A tall thin
man was standing upon the steps. with the
ghost OF a smile upon his face. For a mo
ment the Dean could only stammer. 1t was
such a dreadful outrage.
SIS that,n he said at last, sis that there,
sir. being done by your authoritv?" With
a shaking finger he pointed to Mr.. Swain
sons plot. The tall man in a .leisurely
manner settled a pair of eyeglasses upon
his nose and looked in the direction indi-
Gated.
"Ah, I see what you mean," he said at
last, with delicious GOODNESS. "Certainly,
Mr.. Dean, certainly"
care you aware, sir, what it is?" gasped
the clergyman; it is sacrilegelw
"Pooh, nothing of the kind, l assure you,
my dear sir. It's croquet."
The tone was one of explanation, n
there was such an air of frankness, of put
ting an end to an unfounded error, that the
Nsins upon the Deans temples swelled, aud
his face grew, IL possible, redder than
before.
81 won't stay to handy words with
"Bandy!' cried the tall man, intensely
i amused. ma! ma ! Ma! you GlOuSuO IL was
hocky! Bandyl o. no, you play it with
hoops and a mallet. Drive the balls
~through-soln
And to the intense delight of the Close
people, nine-tenths of whom were at their
windows, Mr.. Swanson executed an I'M
calmly kind of gambade upon the steps.
~"Disgusting, the Dean called it afterward,
when talking to sympathetic ears. Nowh he
merely put it away from him with a wave
of the hand.
"I will not discuss itnow, Mr.. Swanson.
If your own feelings of decency and of
what is right and proper do not forbid this
this ribald profanity-I can call it moth
ing else, sir[ ave but one word to add.
The Chapter shall prevent it."
"The Chapter!" replied the other in a
tone of singular contempt, which changed
to s~avageness as he continued, "you are
we'll read in history, Mr.. Dean, they tell
me. Doubtless you remember what hap
pened when the puisant King Cauute babe
and you M the Chapter sit in the chair of
Canute.o
The Dean, it must be confessed, was a
little taken aback by this terrible defiance.
He was amazed. The two glared at one
another and the clergyman was the first to
give way; baffied and Disconnected. yet
still swelling with rage, he strobe toward
the Deanery. His antagonist followed him
with his eyes, then looked more airily than
ever at his plot and the progress being
| Duduo GuCIOy UuO "Oa Nv "LuAi
his chin at the decanal angle, and, with a
flirt of his long coat tails, went into the
house, a happy man n the owner OF a
vastly improved appetite.
But the Dean had more to go through yet.
At the door of his garden he ran in his
haste against some one coming out. Or
dinarily, great m IN as he was, he was also
a gentleman. But this was too much.
That, when the father had insulted him,
the son should almost PROSTATE him on his
L 4r--% l,-o,111I rvoe ,E1Iaro I Mt m r.oto
at a moment when he was smarting with
the sense of unacknowledged defeat.
"Dood morning, Mr.. Dean," said the
young fellow, raising his hat with an evil
tipodes of his sire's manner-only the Dean
was in no mood to discriminatory have
just been having a very pleasant game of
~croquet."
Its greatly to be regretted, but here a
short hiatus in the narrative occurs. The
minor canons, than whom no men are more
wanting in reverence, say that the Deans
answer consistedo of two words, one of them
very pithy, very full of meaning, but in
the mouth of a Dean, however chnleric, i'm
possible-perfectly impossible. Account
ing this as a gloss, and the original reading
not being forthcoming, we are driven tc
conjecture that the Deans answer ex
pressed mild disapprobation of the game OF
croquet. Certain it is that young Swain
son surprised doubtless at SO novel and
1 i ina a July odAus
81 beg our pardon"
"Heml I mean to say that I d. not ap
prove of this. Twill come to tho point.
must ask you to discontinue your visits a
my house" The young man Shared as i
he thought the excited divine had gone
mad; the Deanery was almost u home II
him. "Your father" the Dean went OF
more coherently, "has taken a step so I'm
seemly, $3.50 indecent, has used languag,
so insulting to me, sir, that l cannot, at an
rate at present, receive you here"
Young Swanson was a gentleman, an
moreover, for a very good reason herein
after appearing, the Dean failed to ange
him. He raised his hat as respectfully a
before, bowed slightly in token of acquies
cence, and went on his way sorrowfully.
He had a singularly pleasant smile, thi
young gentleman, though this was not tn
time for displaying it. Mrs. Deanhad one
pronounced him a pippin grated on a crab
stock, and thereafter in certain circles h
, straight and open-eyed, with faults enough
but of a generous youthful kind, easil,
! overlooked and more easily forgiven
! Doubtless Mr.. Swanson would nave haI
!, his son more practical, cool-headed an,
! precise, but the shoot did not grow in th
same way asth parenttree. Old Swainsol
. would not have been happy without a
: enemy, nor young Swanson as happy wit
. one; and if, as the former often said, tn
, l~atter's worst enemy was himself, he wa
I 4 l1hCly W HdNS d GOlOldUly prosperous lii
? In a space of time inconceivably smal
: the doings of the grim old lawyer and to
s Deans remonstrance were all over Bicestel
0 Nay, fast as the stone had rolled it ha
gathered moss. 1t was gravely asserte
t by people who rapidly grew to be eye-wi
4 nesses that Mr.. Swanson had danced
o ~hornpipe in the middle of his plot, snaJ
n ping his fingers at the Dean the while I'll
n latter prodded him as we'll as he could owe
the ratings with his umbrella, and ths
only the arrival of Mr.. Swainson's son pit
s an end to this d~isgraceful exhibition.
Neither side wasted time. The Dean, til
Canon in residence and the Precentor, a
active young fellow, consulted their leg,
adviser, and talked largely of eiectmen
d title and seizin. Mr.. Swanson, havin
X nine points of the law in his favor, and 6
If well acquainted with the tenth as his O,
ponents' legal adviser, devoted himself
d the lighter pursuit of the mallet and hoo
k In a state of felicity undreamed of befoi
he played, or affected to play, croquet, h
right hand against his left, the formt
It giving the latter two hoops and a cage. Z
played with a cage and a bell; it was mo-
o. cheerful, not to say noisy.
is Of course, all Bicester found occasion
r pass through the Close and see this gre
d sight, while every window in the p~recinc
ii was raised, that the denizens thereof mig
ID near the tap, tap of the sacrilegious MALE
The cathedral lawyer, urged to take son
n step, and well knowing the strength of I'll
IS enemy's position, was fairly ~nonplusse
le But while he pondered, with a certain gri
st amusement, yer Mr.. SwainsoH's crotche
j. which did not present itself to his leg
mind in so dreadful a light as it did to Il
+ mind clerical, some unknown person to-
II action and made it war to the knife.
"Who did it?" Bicester asked loud.
a when it awoke one morning, to fin NJ
d, Swanson in a state of mind which SCENE
K imperatively to call for a padded room al
De a straight waistcoat. During the mig
some n had thrown down the ironrailin
ne taken up and broken his hoops, crushed b
II. bell and snapped his pegs; all this in t.
neatest possible manner and with no dan
n, age to the turf. War to the knife indee
lg Mr.. Swanson, like the famous Widdrin
US ton, would nave fought upon his stumps
IN such a provocation.
st He expressed his opinion very holly tn
us this was the work of ''that arroga
IN priest,o and he should smart for it.
clergyman in this kind of context becom
q nriest. This is common knoWladpe. T