"Hush!" said the parson, gently. "What a horrible oath!"

"Horrible oath! If you had my nankeens on," said the squire, still
rubbing himself, "and had fallen into a thicket of thistles, with a
donkey's teeth within an inch of your ear--"

"It is not gone, then?" interrupted the parson.

"No,--that is, I think not," said the squire, dubiously; and he clapped
his hand to the organ in question. "No! it is not gone!"

"Thank Heaven!" said the good clergyman, kindly. "Hum," growled the
squire, who was now once more engaged in rubbing himself. "Thank Heaven
indeed, when I am as full of thorns as a porcupine! I should just like
to know what use thistles are in the world."

"For donkeys to eat, if you will let them, Squire," answered the parson.

"Ugh, you beast!" cried Mr. Hazeldean, all his wrath reawakened, whether
by the reference to the donkey species, or his inability to reply to the
parson, or perhaps by some sudden prick too sharp for humanity--
especially humanity in nankeens--to endure without kicking. "Ugh, you
beast!" he exclaimed, shaking his cane at the donkey, which, at the
interposition of the parson, had respectfully recoiled a few paces, and
now stood switching its thin tail, and trying vainly to lift one of its
fore-legs--for the flies teased it.

"Poor thing!" said the parson, pityingly. "See, it has a raw place on
the shoulder, and the flies have found out the sore."