Ergo, if history repeats itself, as I have
heard you say, you should keep the black, and sacrifice the
white.'
'But,' objected the rector, 'that was the white's first
litter, and the black's second. Why shouldn't the white do
as well as the black next time?'
'And better, your reverence,' chimed in the gardener. 'The
number don't allays depend on the sow, do it?'
'That is neither here nor there,' returned the rector.
'Well,' said the gardener, who stood to his guns, 'if your
reverence is right, as no doubt you will be, that'll make
just twenty little pigs for the butcher, come Michaelmas.'
'We can't kill 'em before they are born,' said the rector.
'That's true, your reverence. But it comes to the same
thing.'
'Not to the pigs,' retorted the rector.
'To your reverence, I means.'
'A pig at the butcher's,' I suggested, 'is worth a dozen
unborn.'
'No one can deny it,' said the rector, as he fingered the
small change in his breeches pocket; and pointing with the
other hand to the broad back of the black sow, exclaimed,
'This is the one, DUPLEX AGITUR PER LUMBOS SPINA! She's got
a back like an alderman's chin.'
'EPICURI DE GREGE PORCUS,' I assented, and the fate of the
black sow was sealed.
Next day an express came from Holkham, to say that Lady
Leicester had given birth to a daughter. My tutor jumped out
of his chair to hand me the note. 'Did I not anticipate the
event'? he cried. 'What a wonderful world we live in!
Unconsciously I made room for the infant by sacrificing the
life of that pig.' As I never heard him allude to the
doctrine of Pythagoras, as he had no leaning to Buddhism,
and, as I am sure he knew nothing of the correlation of
forces, it must be admitted that the conception was an
original one.
Be this as it may, Mr. Collyer was an upright and
conscientious man. I owe him much, and respect his memory.
He died at an advanced age, an honorary canon, and - a
bachelor.
Another portrait hangs amongst the many in my memory's
picture gallery. It is that of his successor to the
vicarage, the chaplaincy, and the librarianship, at Holkham -
Mr. Alexander Napier - at this time, and until his death
fifty years later, one of my closest and most cherished
friends. Alexander Napier was the son of Macvey Napier,
first editor of the 'Edinburgh Review.' Thus, associated
with many eminent men of letters, he also did some good
literary work of his own.
