d the Parson, "although that is a melancholy conclusion,
yet if you mean it to apply universally, and not to the family of the
Dales in particular, it is not one which my candor as a reasoner, and my
Humility as a mortal, will permit me to challenge."

"I defy you," said Mr. Hazledean triumphantly. "But to stick to the
subject, which it is monstrous hard to do when one talks with a parson, I
only just ask you to look yonder, and tell me on your conscience--I don't
even say as a parson, but as a parishioner--whether you ever saw a more
disreputable spectacle?"

While he spoke, the Squire, leaning heavily on the Parson's left
shoulder, extended his cane in a line parallel with the right of that
disputatious ecclesiastic, so that he might guide the organ of sight to
the object he had thus flatteringly described.

"I confess," said the Parson, "that, regarded by the eye of the senses,
it is a thing that in its best day had small pretensions to beauty, and
is not elevated into the Picturesque even by neglect and decay. But, my
friend, regarded by the eye of the inner man--of the rural philosopher
and parochial legislator--I say it is by neglect and decay that it is
rendered a very pleasing feature in what I may call 'the moral topography
of a parish.'"

The Squire looked at the Parson as if be could have beaten him; and
indeed, regarding the object in dispute not only with the eye of the
outer man, but the eye of law and order, the eye of a country gentleman
and a justice of the peace, the spectacle _was_ scandalously
disreputable. It was moss-grown; it was worm-eaten; it was broken right
in the middle; through its four socketless eyes, neighbored by the
nettle, peered the thistle:--the thistle!--a forest of thistles!--and, to
complete the degradation of the whole, those thistles had attracted the
donkey of an itinerant tinker; and the irreverent animal was in the very
act of taking his luncheon out of the eyes and jaws of--THE PARISH
STOCKS.

The Squire looked as if he could have beaten the Parson; but as he was
not without some slight command of temper, and a substitute was luckily
at hand, he gulped down, his resentment and made a rush--at the donkey!

Now the donkey was hampered by a rope to its fore feet, to the which was
attached a billet of wood called technically "a clog," so that it had no
fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had
justly provoked. But, the ass turned round with unusu