"Ah, zur! we do all ged on downwards like
the cow's tail, don't we, zur?"

The dinner is held in the barn of the Dark
Sun. One end of the barn—the road end—by
a stroke of genius, has been removed, and the
building carried on by a long dining-tent, such
as Epsom Downs may boast on a Derby-day: so
that the dinner, beginning under tiles, ends under
canvas. Through the looped-up entrance we pass,
and find (I am honorary member of the Royal
Samaritans, with red and blue flowering at my
button-hole) the tables laid the whole length of
either side of the tent, and several crafty old
Samaritans already in strong positions near the
chief joints. There is a murmur of welcome as
we all take our places, and the Reverend Mr.
St. Ives rises and says something in a low voice
to the huge sirloin of beef that smokes before
him. Eighty of us look around us with pleased
but avid eyes.

Now, far be it from me to deride the rustic
hospitality of which I partake with so much
good will and true enjoyment. Still, I cannot
choke back a ludicrous thought or two at the
oddity of the scene. Our hats are placed in
the manger that runs behind us, and on a rafter
high over Squire Hanger's head hangs a rusty
scythe, like the sword of Damocles. Just behind
us, to the right, is an open door leading out from
the stable into the farm-yard, and through this
door piles of plates, cans of beer, and huge
loaves of bread, are constantly entering, as if
they were endowed with the power of voluntary
motion. At regular intervals down the table
are acres of veal-pie, joints of beef and mutton,
and broad dishes of potatoes and greens. Everything
is rough, but everything is prodigal in
quantity and excellent in quality. The treasurer
and stewards have laid by their wands,
and now in shirt-sleeves serve as waiters: running
with a good-natured fury to fill every
empty glass and replenish every empty plate.
As at all rural club dinners, a dead and almost
solemn silence prevails when the plates are first
filled. It is not a dinner; it is a battle with
hunger. There is no sound but the crescendo
gurgling of beer-pouring, and the clatter of
knives and forks. The only conversation
consists in inquiries for salt, demands for
potatoes, and praises of beef. The quantity
eaten is great. Three times beef, and then a
foot or two of veal-pie, is a mere average; six
glasses of pure hard beer and a hatful of potatoes
are nothing at all. Presently the good-natured
landlord, almost worn out with helping
to beef, comes round and hopes everything is to
everybody's satisfaction: "which it is." There
is great variety and character in the art of
dining, as practised by the Royal Samaritans.
Some begin harpooning likely potatoes before
grace is said; others look out kindly for their
friends' wants; some turn up their cuffs as if they
were going to fell a tree; others pick and talk
of earlier club days, days—better than are now
prevalent: which the red-faced curly-headed
fellows, unctuous with redundant fat of beef,
don't care to contradict, and listen to over the
slanting tops of beer-tumblers. At last dinner
is all but "worried down," as the keeper expresses
it, and all tongues are loosed.

There is now a fresh tremor of pleasure as
the eighteen-pounder puddings arrive, and are
geometrised into melon-like sections. Never
was such beef, never was such pudding. The
squire's face beams at the pudding as if it were
an old friend, the actual pudding of Christmas-time
come again. The puddings melt like
snow in thaw-time; and vigilant beer-bearers
still keep on replenishing half-filled glasses with
a dangerous anti-teetotal watchfulness. Grace
again, and this time the Amen is uttered with a
generous warmth and fulness of conviction that
does credit to the Chicklebury head, heart, and
stomach.

And now the cloth is drawn off, and long
clean white pipes and "Waterloo charges" are
laid on the table, and before each group are
placed beer jugs and clean tumblers, and there
is a laugh at one old shepherd, who clings to
his jug and glass, and will allow no one to touch
either, even under pretext of replenishing.

"Because," as he doggedly observes, "he do
know that he shall get no other, if he once do
lose sight of they."

The treasurer taps with a fork on the table.
Silence for a speech from the squire! At once
that jangle of voices dies away to a whisper,
and all the red faces turn towards Squire
Hanger.

The squire knuckles down his hand to the table,
and looks hard and with extreme interest at a
knot in the deal. Then all of a sudden, like
half-dry powder, he blazes off and fires into a
speech. He is happy to meet his tenants there
that day. He is glad to see men helping themselves,
remembering the good old proverb,
"Who helps himself, God helps." He is glad,
too, to hear that the club is flourishing, and that
there have been fewer men on the sick-list this
last year than the year before. He is glad to
see round him faces to which he has been familiar
from his boyhood, faces connected with
his dearest memories of friends, and home, and
native country. All he wishes is (here he took
a sip of beer), that the gentlemen of England
would oftener find opportunities to thus meet
their poorer neighbours; as he is sure that such
meetings tend to remove rankling feelings, to
promote kindliness and good will, and to draw
closer the bonds that should unite neighbours
and neighbours, landlord and tenant, master and
servants.

The cheers are tremendous; the noise is like
the springing of a mine; as for Farmer Hacker,
he stoops nearly to the ground, and ladling with
his white hat as if he were baling out a boat,
leads the cheering. Then Farmer Wilding rises
and proposes the squire's health. Some other
farmer proposes the landlord's health (him of the
Dark Sun), and "thanks for a very good dinner,"
till at last nearly every one has risen and proposed
somebody or something; and now, too, the
treasurer begins to chink money together, and
to pile little ominous heaps of half-crowns on the