lift the bull over the gate?" in allusion to the following story: An
Austwick farmer, wishing to get a bull out of a field--how the animal
got into it, the story does not inform us--procured the assistance of
nine of his neighbours to lift the animal over the gate. After trying in
vain for some hours, they sent one of their number to the village for
more help. In going out he opened the gate, and after he had gone away,
it occurred to one of those who remained that the bull might be allowed
to go out in the same manner.

Another Austwick farmer had to take a wheelbarrow to a certain town,
and, to save a hundred yards by going the ordinary road, he went through
the fields, and had to lift the barrow over twenty-two stiles.

It was a Wiltshire man, however (if all tales be true), who determined
to cure the filthy habits of his hogs by making them roost upon the
branches of a tree, like birds. Night after night the pigs were hoisted
up to their perch, and every morning one of them was found with its neck
broken, until at last there were none left.--And quite as witless,
surely, was the device of the men of Belmont, who once desired to move
their church three yards farther westward, so they carefully marked the
exact distance by leaving their coats on the ground. Then they set to
work to push with all their might against the eastern wall. In the
meantime a thief had gone round to the west side and stolen their coats.
"Diable!" exclaimed they on finding that their coats were gone, "we have
pushed too far!"

[Illustration]
[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES: