dared to begin the attack; and I was no less alert in opposition. But
though he was Hector, I as it happened was Achilles, and bestowed my
wrath upon him most unsparingly. In fine, valour, victory, and right,
were for once united, and we very fairly put the Squire, his heir, his
ratcatcher, and his beef-eaters to flight.

The rector, dreading a second attack from the enemy, began to fortify
his castle, provide ammunition, and arrange his troops. I acted as his
aide-de-camp, burning to be myself commander in chief. But the caution
was superfluous: the Squire, like his son, was rather revengeful than
valorous, and returned no more to the field.

In the parish however the fortune of the day might be said to wear a
very different face, for there was not a farmer who did not triumph at
the tythe in kind, which had been paid to the rector; and it became a
general threat to sweep the parish of moles, weazles, stoats, polecats
and vermin of every species, and tenant the rectory with them, if any
thing more was heard on the subject of tythes. Neither did detraction
forget to remind the rector of his age, and how shameful it was for
a man with one foot in the grave to quarrel with and rob the poor
farmers, whom he was hired to guide, console, and love. The poor
farmers forgot that, in the eye of the law, the robbery was theirs;
and the rector forgot that in the eye of justice and common sense, he
had already more than enough. The framers of the law too forgot that
to hire a man to love a whole parish is but a blundering kind of a
mode. But such mistakes are daily made.