To be sure, there was an exception in the curate, who would
receive unblenching the information that the meadow beyond the
orchard was a prairie studded with herds of buffalo, which it was
our delight, moccasined and tomahawked, to ride down with those
whoops that announce the scenting of blood. He neither laughed
nor sneered, as the Olympians would have done; but possessed of a
serious idiosyncrasy, he would contribute such lots of
valuable suggestion as to the pursuit of this particular sort of
big game that, as it seemed to us, his mature age and eminent
position could scarce have been attained without a practical
knowledge of the creature in its native lair. Then, too, he was
always ready to constitute himself a hostile army or a band of
marauding Indians on the shortest possible notice: in brief, a
distinctly able man, with talents, so far as we could judge,
immensely above the majority. I trust he is a bishop by this
time,--he had all the necessary qualifications, as we knew.

These strange folk had visitors sometimes,--stiff and colourless
Olympians like themselves, equally without vital interests and
intelligent pursuits: emerging out of the clouds, and passing
away again to drag on an aimless existence somewhere out of our
ken. Then brute force was pitilessly applied. We were captured,
washed, and forced into clean collars: silently submitting, as
was our wont, with more contempt than anger. Anon, with unctuous
hair and faces stiffened in a conventional grin, we sat and
listened to the usual platitudes. How could reasonable people
spend their precious time so? That was ever our wonder as we
bounded forth at last--to the old clay-pit to make pots, or to
hunt bears among the hazels.