"
"No wonder. He's got some real beauties to be fond of. Good-day,
landlord."
"Good-day, sir, and a pleasant ride to 'ee."
And now, my boys, you whom I want to get for readers, have you had
enough? Will you give in at once, and say you're convinced, and let me
begin my story, or will you have more of it? Remember, I've only been
over a little bit of the hillside yet--what you could ride round easily
on your ponies in an hour. I'm only just come down into the Vale, by
Blowing Stone Hill; and if I once begin about the Vale, what's to stop
me? You'll have to hear all about Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred, and
Farringdon, which held out so long for Charles the First (the Vale was
near Oxford, and dreadfully malignant--full of Throgmortons, Puseys,
and Pyes, and such like; and their brawny retainers). Did you ever read
Thomas Ingoldsby's "Legend of Hamilton Tighe"? If you haven't, you ought
to have. Well, Farringdon is where he lived, before he went to sea;
his real name was Hamden Pye, and the Pyes were the great folk at
Farringdon. Then there's Pusey. You've heard of the Pusey horn, which
King Canute gave to the Puseys of that day, and which the gallant old
squire, lately gone to his rest (whom Berkshire freeholders turned out
of last Parliament, to their eternal disgrace, for voting according to
his conscience), used to bring out on high days, holidays, and bonfire
nights.
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