"Good heavens!" cried the Curate, or (as some say) something much more
manly, and ran, whirling his croquet mallet and shouting, to head off
the chase.

"Stop, you wretch!" cried the curate, as though giant hens were the
commonest facts in life.

And then, finding he could not possibly intercept her, he hurled his
mallet with all his might and main, and out it shot in a gracious curve
within a foot or so of Master Skelmersdale's head and through the glass
lantern of the conservatory. Smash! The new conservatory! The Vicar's
wife's beautiful new conservatory!

It frightened the hen. It might have frightened any one. She dropped her
victim into a Portugal laurel (from which he was presently extracted,
disordered but, save for his less delicate garments, uninjured), made a
flapping leap for the roof of Fulcher's stables, put her foot through a
weak place in the tiles, and descended, so to speak, out of the infinite
into the contemplative quiet of Mr. Bumps the paralytic--who, it is now
proved beyond all cavil, did, on this one occasion in his life, get down
the entire length of his garden and indoors without any assistance
whatever, bolt the door after him, and immediately relapse again into
Christian resignation and helpless dependence upon his wife....

The rest of the pullets were headed off by the other croquet players,
and went through the vicar's kitchen garden into the doctor's field, to
which rendezvous the fifth also came at last, clucking disconsolately
after an unsuccessful attempt to walk on the cucumber frames in Mr.
Witherspoon's place.