ry
excellent some of these home-made drinks are.

The British farmer is remarkably fond of a lord. If you wanted to put
him into a good temper for a month, the best plan would be to ask a lord
to shoot over his land, and tell him privately to make a great point of
shaking the honest yeoman by the hand, and all that kind of thing. By
the bye, I was once told by a coachman that he was sure the Bicester
hounds were a first-rate pack, for he had seen in the papers that no
less than four lords hunted with them. There is little harm in this
extraordinarily widespread admiration for titles; it is common to all
nations. We can all love a lord, provided that he be a gentleman. The
gentlemen of England, whether titled or untitled, are in thought and
feeling a very high type of the human race. But the man I like best to
meet is he who either by natural insight or by the trained habit of his
mind is able to look upon all mortals with eyes unprejudiced by outward
show and circumstance, judging them by character alone. Such a man may
not be understood or be awarded the credit due to him as "lord of the
lion heart" and despiser of sycophants and cringers. The habit of mind,
nevertheless, is worth cultivating; it will be so very useful some day,
when mortal garments have been put off and the vast inequalities of
destiny adjusted, and we all stand unclothed before the Judge.

Tom Peregrine was not a "great frequenter of the church"; indeed, both
father and son often remarked to me that "'Twas a pity there was not a
chapel of ease put up in the hamlet, the village church being a full
mile away." However, when Tom was ailing from any cause or other he
immediately sent for the parson, and told him that he intended in future
to go to church regularly every Sunday. Shakespeare would have enquired
if he was troubled "about some act that had no relish of salvation
in't." "Thomas, he's a terrible coward [I here quote Mrs. Peregrine]. He
can't a-bear to have anything a-wrong with him; yet he don't mind
killing any animal." He made a tremendous fuss about a sore finger he
had at one time; and when the doctor exclaimed, like Romeo, "Courage,
man; the hurt cannot be much," Tom Peregrine replied, with much the same
humour as poor Mercutio: "No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as
a church door; but 'tis enough." I do not mean to infer that he quoted
Shakespeare, but he used words to the same effect. If asked whether he
had read Shakespeare,