I thankfully accepted; for I didn’t at all like the notion of riding behind Joe on the chestnut, and I can’t think how I could ever have been such a fool as to say I would do it. The Doctor had two bright lamps to his gig, which gave us glimpses of the closed booths and camping places of the people who were going to stay on the hill all night, as we drove out of the Castle. I suggested that it must be very bad for the people sleeping out up there.
“For their health?” said he, “not a bit of it, on a fine night like this--do ’em good; I wish they always slept so healthily.”
“Oh, for their morals? Well, I don’t know that there’s much harm done. I’m sorry to say they’re used to crowding--and, after all, very few but the owners of the booths, and the regular tramps, stay up here. Didn’t you see how quiet every thing was?”
I said I had noticed this; and then he began asking me about the sports, for he had only got on to the hill late in the afternoon; and when we came to the wrestling and backsword play, I asked him whether he thought they did any harm.
“No,” said he, “there are very few serious accidents--in fact none--now that drink is not allowed on the stage. There used to be some very brutal play in out-of-the-way places, where the revels were got up by publicans. But that is all over, at least about this part of the country.”
“Stop them! not I--I would encourage them, and make the parish clerk and constable perpetual umpires.” And then he went on to say how he should like to see the young fellows in every parish drilled in a company, and taught all sorts of manly exercises, and shooting especially; so that they would make good light troops at a day’s notice, in case of invasion. But he was afraid the great game preservers would never allow this. And in the middle of his talk, which seemed very sensible, we came to Joe’s gate, and I got down, and wished him good night.
I found the family gone to bed, and only Joe and the Parson in the kitchen, and there, over a last pipe, we chatted about the sports.
At last the Parson turned to me, and said, “You saw a good deal of the play on the stage; now, would you stop it if you could?”
I thought a minute over what I had seen, and what the Doctor had said.