Mackey, to his eternal-honour be it
related, and without the remotest interest in the bank, stepped nobly
forward, unsolicited and unsupported, gave to all the poor people
who held the one pound notes the full value for them, reserving to
himself only the chance of the dividend. Ye Berkeleys, Ducies, Lennoxes,
Cravens, Hammonds, Bushes, Molineauxes, and Coventrys, and all the
long list of Cheltenham gay! ~234~~show me an action like this ye
have done--a spirit so noble, when did you display?--Do you see that
rosy-gilled fellow coming this way, with a hunting-whip in his hand? in
costume, more like a country horse-dealer than a country clergyman;
yet such he was, until the bishop of the diocese removed the clerical
incumbrance of the cassock, to give the wearer freer license to indulge
his vein for hunting, coursing, cock-fighting, and the unrestricted
pleasures of the table and the bottle. A good story is told of him and
his friend, the colonel, who, having invited some unsophisticated farmer
to partake of the festivities of the castle, laid him low with strong
potations of _black strap_, and in that state had him carried forth to
the stable-yard, where he was immured up to his neck in warm horse-dung,
the pious ex-chaplain reading the burial-service over him in presence of
the surviving members of the hunt.
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