feeding, and the apothecary agreed with both in everything, which
reconciled them, for both good women loved me so heartily they were near
upon disputing over the medicines I was to consume.

Under such affectionate treatment I betrayed the alarming symptom that my
imagination was set more on my mother than on my father: I could not help
thinking that for any one to go to heaven was stranger than to drive to
Dipwell, and I had this idea when my father was clasping me in his arms;
but he melted it like snow off the fields. He came with postillions in
advance of him wearing crape rosettes, as did the horses. We were in the
cricket-field, where Dipwell was playing its first match of the season,
and a Dipwell lad, furious to see the elevens commit such a breach of the
rules and decency as to troop away while the game was hot, and surround
my father, flung the cricket-ball into the midst and hit two or three of
the men hard. My father had to shield him from the consequences. He
said he liked that boy; and he pleaded for him so winningly and funnily
that the man who was hurt most laughed loudest.

Standing up in the carriage, and holding me by the hand, he addressed
them by their names: 'Sweetwinter, I thank you for your attention to my
son; and you, Thribble; and you, my man; and you, Baker; Rippengale, and
you; and you, Jupp'; as if he knew them personally. It was true he
nodded at random. Then he delivered a short speech, and named himself a
regular subscriber to their innocent pleasures. He gave them money, and
scattered silver coin among the boys and girls, and praised John
Thresher, and Martha, his wife, for their care of me, and pointing to the
chimneys of the farm, said that the house there was holy to him from
henceforth, and he should visit it annually if possible, but always in
the month of May, and in the shape of his subscription, as certain as the
cowslip. The men, after their fit of cheering, appeared unwilling to