C., sometime curate of Thorpington Parva, in
the county of Hampshire, was no exception to this rule. AEsthetically he
was a blot on the landscape; among all the heroes I have met I never saw
anything less heroically moulded.
He stood about five feet nought and tipped the beam at seven stone
nothing. He had a mild chinless face and his long beaky nose, round
large spectacles, and trick of cocking his head sideways when
conversing, gave him the appearance of an intelligent little dicky-bird.
I remember very well the occasion of our first meeting. I was in my
troop lines one afternoon, blackguarding a farrier, when a loud nicker
sounded on the road and a black cob, bearing a feebly protesting padre
upon his fat back, trotted through the gate, up to the lines and began
to swop How d'y'do's with my hairies. The little Padre cocked his head
on one side and oozed apologies from every pore.
He hadn't meant to intrude, he twittered; Peter had brought him; it was
Peter's fault; Peter was very eccentric.
Peter, I gathered, was the fat cob, who by this time had butted into the
lines and was tearing at a hay net as if he hadn't had a meal for years.
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