There'll be lashins o' vittles an'
drink. No Walters was ever interred under a kilderkin.'" Now the fact
was, I had never driven a horse in my life and hardly knew (as they
say) a horse's head from his tail till he began to move. But that is
just the sort of ignorance no young man will readily confess to. So
I answered that I was engaged that evening. We were just organising
night-classes for the young men of the parish, and the vicar was to
open the first, with a short address, at half-past six.
"'You'll be back in lashins o' time,' the farmer assured me.
"This put me fairly in a corner. 'To tell you the truth,' said I, 'I'm
not accustomed to drive much.' But of course this was wickedly short
of the truth.
"He declared that it was impossible to come to grief on the way, the
brown horse being quiet as a lamb and knowing every stone of the road.
And the end was that I consented. The brown horse was harnessed by the
farm-boy and led round with the gig while Miss Jane Ann and I were
finishing our midday meal. And I drove off alone in a black suit and
with my heart in my mouth.
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