Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall

by Robert Stephen Hawker

HUMPHREY VIVIAN

Among the changes that have passed over the face of our land with such torrent-like rapidity in this wondrous nineteenth century of marvel and miracle, none are more striking and complete than that which has transformed the torpid clergy of past periods into the active and energetic ministers of our own Church and time. The country incumbent of Macaulay’s “History,” the guests at the second table of the patron and the squire—the Trullibers and the Parson Adams of Fielding and Smollett—would find no deuterotype in the present day. But in the transition period of our ecclesiastical history there are here and there fossil memorials of the former men that would enable a thoughtful mind to construct singular specimens of character which, while embodying the past, would also indicate the future lineaments of gradual change and improvement. Among these is one, a personal friend of the writer when he first entered the ministry, whose kindliness of heart and originality of character may supply sundry graphic and interesting reminiscences. As old Johnson would have said, had he written his life, so let me say of Humphrey Vivian, that he was at once the stately priest, the genial companion, and the faithful, facetious friend. Let me indulge some of these recollections, and gather up some materials of personal history, which are by no means wanting. For it was his great delight, when a guest at my table, after he had done more than justice to the viands set before him, when his gold snuff-box had been produced and ceremoniously offered to all around, and his glass filled with his favourite wine—“sound old Tory port”—to recall in whole volumes the events of his youth and manhood, and to dilate with emphatic gusto on the contrasts of the age and times.

The personal aspect of my friend presented an imposing solemnity to the eye. Tall, even to the measure of six feet two inches, but slender withal as the bole of a poplar-tree, with small features and twinkling eye, and a round undersized head, and yet with a demeanour so pompous, such a frequency of condescending bows, and such a roll of words, that he took immediate rank as a gentleman of the old school. And as to his mental endowments, be it enough to record that there were few men as wise as he looked. His garb was that of a pluralized clergyman of the days of the Georges,—fine black broadcloth, that hung around him in festive moments like mourning on a Maypole. His vest was of rich silk with wide pockets, roomy enough to hold the inevitable snuff-box, the gold étui, and the small cock-fighter’s saw, which was used to cut away the natural spur of the bird when it was replaced with steel. This last was a common equipment of a country gentleman, lay or clerical, in those days. His apparel terminated in black silk stockings and nether garments, buckled with gold or silver at the knee. Buckles also clasped his shoes. Thus attired, he was no unfit representative of the clergy who ruled and reigned in their parochial domain in the west of England in the early part of the eighteenth century. His conversational powers were ample and amusing; but it was when he could be brought to dilate on his own adventures and history in earlier life that he most surely riveted and requited the attention of his auditors.

At my table one day the topic of discourse was the marriage of the clergy. “The young curates,” said he, “should always marry, and that as soon as ever they are ordained. Nothing brightens up a parsonage like the ribbons of a merry wife. I, you know, have buried three Mrs. Vivians; and when I come to look back, I really can hardly decide which it was that made the happiest home. If I had to live my life over again, I should certainly marry all three. And yet I did not win my first love, after all. Her grumpy old father came between us and blighted our days, as the Psalmist puts it. Ah! the very sound of her name is like a charm to me still. Bridget Morrice! But ‘Biddy’ she was always called at home; and very soon she was ‘Biddy dear’ to me.

“I was at Oxford then, and when I came down for the ‘Long’ I used to be very duly at church, because there I could see Biddy. Her pew was opposite to mine; and there was I in full rig as we used to dress in those days,—long scarlet coat, silk waistcoat with a figured pattern, and tights. One Sunday after prayers up comes old Morrice, roaring like a bull. ‘Mr. Vivian,’ he growled, ‘I’ll trouble you to take your eyes off my daughter’s face in church. I saw you, sir, when you pretended to be bowing in the Creed. You were bowing to Biddy, my daughter, sir, across the aisle; and that you call attending divine service, do you, sir?’ However, in spite of the old dragon, we used to meet in the garden, and there, in the arbour, what fruit Biddy used to give me! Such peaches, plums, and sometimes cheesecakes and tarts? Talk of a sweet tooth! I think that in those days I had a whole set; and now I have but one left of any kind, and that is a stump. But Biddy treated me very unkindly after all. There was a regiment of soldiers stationed in the town, and of course lots of gay young officers fluttering about in feathers and lace. Well, one day it was rumoured about that old Morrice and his wife were going to give a spread, and these captain fellows were to be there, head and chief. There were to be dinner and a dance, and I of course thought that, somehow or other, Biddy would manage with her mother to get me a card and a corner. I waited and watched; but no—none came. So at last away I went to the house, angry and fierce, and determined to have matters cleared up. Old Morrice, luckily, was out, and his wife with him; but there was Biddy, up to her elbows in jellies and jams, fussing and fuming like a maid to get things nice and toothsome for cockering up those red rascals, that I hated like grim death. ‘Well, Biddy,’ I said, ‘do you call this pretty, to serve me so? Here you ask everybody to your feasts and your junkets—yes, every one in the town but me!’ And what with the vexation and the smell of the cookery, I actually burst out sobbing like a boy. This made Biddy cry too, and there was a scene, sure enough. ‘It is father’s fault, Henry, utterly and entirely: he is so mad against you because he thinks you want me for the sake of my money.’ ‘Money, Biddy dear!’ I said—‘money! Now I do think that if I bring blood your father ought to bring groats!’

“Just then some one lifted the latch, and poor Biddy began to scream: ‘O Henry, dear! what shall I do? That’s father come back. He’ll surely kill you or me, or do some rash deed. What can I do? Here, here,’ she said, opening a kind of closet-door, ‘step in, that’s a dear, and wait till I can get you out. Don’t cough or sneeze, but keep quiet and still as a mouse till I come to call you.’ In I went, and Biddy shut the door. Well, do you know, I found she had put me in a sort of storeroom, where they kept the sweets; and on a long table there was such a spread: raspberry-creams, ices, jellies, all kinds of flummery, and in the middle a thing I never could resist—a fine sugary cake. Didn’t I help myself! and when I began to think that all these niceties were got up to fill up the waistcoats of those rollicking fellows that had cut me out of my Biddy’s heart, it did make me half mad. However, when I thought of that cake, I said to myself, ‘Not one crumb of that lovely thing shall go down their horrid throats after all—see if it does!’ We wore long wide pockets in those days, big enough to hold a Christmas-pie. So in went the cake; and there was room besides for a whole plate of macaroons. Presently Biddy was at the door, and in such a way. ‘Make, haste, Henry, dear—quick; and do go straight home! I would not have you meet father for the world!’ You may guess how I scudded away through the streets with my skirts bulging out, and the boys shouting after me, ‘There goes the Oxford scholar with his humps slipped down!’

“Next time I met Biddy, it was coming out of church. She could hardly tell whether to laugh or cry. ‘How could you, Henry, dear?’ she said,—‘how could you carry off our beautiful cake?’ ‘How? Biddy, dear,’ said I; ‘why, in my pocket, to be sure.’

“But the worst of all was that Biddy was cold to me from that very time; and when I came home from college the next year I heard that she was engaged to a Captain Upjohns, and she was married to him not long after. So he had Biddy and I had the cake. But she was my first love; and I do think, after all, notwithstanding the three Mrs. Vivians, she was verily my last love also. People say that Queen Mary declared that if she was opened after her death, Calais would be found graven on her heart.[151] And I, too, say often, that if my dead bosom were examined, it would be found that Biddy Morrice was carved on mine.[152]

“Well, well; time passed away—years upon years. I was ordained, and served half-a-dozen curacies—three at once for some time; and then I got, one after another, my two first livings. I was a widower. I had lost the first—no, no, I am sorry to say the second Mrs. Vivian, when one day I heard that Biddy Morrice was a rich widow. Old Upjohns, it seems, had died and left her no end of money. And then the thought occurred to me that we two might come together after all. ‘’Twould be like a romance,’ I said. I found out that she was settled in great style at Bath. So up I went and found, sure enough, she had a splendid house. A fine formal old butler received me, and I sent up my name. I was shown into a splendid drawing-room, with rich furniture, like a bishop’s palace, all velvet and gold. I sat down, thinking over old times, when Biddy used to come to meet me with her rosy cheeks and her strawberry mouth, and a waist you might span with your hand. At last the door opened, and in she came. But alack, alas! such a cat! oh dear, oh dear! and with such a bow-window: it was surprising,—more like old Mrs. Morrice than my Biddy. I was aghast. I never kissed her, as I intended, but I stood staring like a gawky. I remember I offered her a pinch of snuff, which she took. We had a talk, but it was all prisms and prunes with Biddy. However, she invited me to dinner the next day, and I went. Everything first-rate,—turbot and haunch, and so on, all upon silver; fine old Madeira, and glorious port; and that sleek fellow, the butler, ruling over all! There was a moderate dessert, and on the middle dish there was such a cake! ‘I remember,’ said Biddy, but without the shadow of a smile—‘I remember that you are fond of cake.’ Well, after the cloth was removed, I felt all the better for my dinner, and it is at that time I always have most courage, particularly after the third glass. As I looked on the sleek butler and his pompous ways, I thought to myself, ‘I should like to dethrone that rule, and reign myself over her cellar.’

“So I broached the subject of my wishes. ‘Don’t you think, Biddy dear,’ said I, ‘now that my second Mrs. V. has gone, and old Upjohns also out of the way, that we two——?’ ‘O Henry, Henry,’ she broke in; ‘the old Adam is still, I see, strong as ever in you. As sweet Mr. Cheekey says at our Bethesda, “We are all criminally minded to our dying day.”’ Never believe me if Bridget had not turned Methodist, and all that. And so, in short, she cut me dead. However, she sent me this snuff-box, and I had her picture put under the lid. Sweet face, isn’t it? But then it was taken thirty years before that dinner at Bath.”

But it was when the conversation turned upon curacies, and stipends, and the usual topers among clerical guests, that our friend Humphrey’s remembrances became of chief interest and value. “Oh, the changes that I have lived to see!” was his favourite phrase. “I remember so well when I was ordained deacon, and came down in my brand-new bombasine bachelor’s gown, and a hood that made me look behind like a two-year-old goat, and bands half a yard long, what a swell I used to think myself to be! Talk of your one good curacy! why, when I began to work I served four. Ay, and I had £10 apiece for them, and thought myself in paradise. I remember there were three of us. John Braddon—he had two curacies and the evening lecture; and Millerford we thought very low down—he had two and no more. We all lived, sir, in the town, and boarded and lodged together. £20 a year each we paid the unfortunate fellow that took us in. Our first landlord was old Geake, the grocer. He stood it twelve months, and then broke all to pieces, and was made bankrupt by his creditors. He actually said in court that we had eaten and drunk all his substance. Well, then, a man called Stag undertook us. He was a market-gardener; and, do you know, after a time he went too! He said it was not so much the meat we consumed, but he had no more vegetables to sell. So we cut him. At last an old fellow named Brewer came forward, and said he would try his luck with us. He stood it pretty well, but then his wife had private property of her own; but she used to say it all went under the waistcoats of the young clergy. She had no family; but she said she would rather have had six children of her own than keep us three. But, no doubt, she exaggerated. Women will do so sometimes.”

“Did you live well, Mr. Vivian?” we interposed.

“Like fighting-cocks, sir. We insisted on good breakfasts, plain joints and plenty for dinner, and nice hot suppers. We didn’t care much about tea—nobody did in those days. But then, behind the parlour door there was always a keg of brandy on tap, and we had a right to go with our little tin cups and draw the spigot twice a day.”

“No doubt, Mr. Vivian, you worked hard in those days?”

“Didn’t we? To be sure it was only on Sundays, but it was enough for all the week. We used to start in the morning and travel on foot to all the points of the compass, every man of us with his umbrella. My first service was at nine o’clock in the morning, prayers and sermon. Then on to Tregare at half-past eleven, West Lariston at two o’clock, and Kimovick at four, and home in the evening, pretty well done up. Braddon and Millerford just the same tramp. But then, how we did enjoy our roast goose, sirloin, or leg of mutton afterwards! We bargained expressly for a hot dinner on Sundays, and we had it too. Then what fun afterwards! Every man had something to tell about his parish. I remember Millerford had to call and see an old woman, a reputed witch. He was to examine her mouth, and see if the roof had the five black marks[153] that stamped an old woman as a witch. He wished to save her, and he declared that she had but four, and one of them doubtful. One day Braddon had christened a man-child, as he thought, Thomas; but the next week the father came in great perplexity. ‘’Twas the mistake of the nurse. ’Tis a girl. How shall us do? Us can never call a maid Tom. You must christen her over again, sir.’ As this could not be, we had to put our heads together, and at last we advised Braddon to alter the name to Thomasine (pronounced Tamzine), and so he just saved her sex.

“One day I had a good story of my own to relate about a pinch of snuff. It was always the custom in those days for the clergyman after the marriage to salute the bride first, before any other person. Well, it was so that I had just married a very buxom, rosy young lady, and when it was over I proceeded to observe the usual ceremony. But I had just before taken an enormous finger-and-thumb-ful of snuff; so no sooner had the bride received my kiss—and I gave her a smart kiss for her good looks—than she began to sneeze. The bridegroom kissed her, of course, and he began also. Then the best man advanced to the privilege. Better he hadn’t, for he began to sneeze awfully; and by-and-by the bridesmaids also, for they were all kissed in turn, till the whole party went sneezing down the aisle, and the last thing I heard outside the church door was ’tchu, ’tchu, ’tchu, till the noise was drowned by the bells from the tower.”

“But I suppose, Mr. Vivian, you did not remain long a curate; you must have received some of your several livings at an early period of life?”

“So I did, sir, sure enough. My text on such subjects was, ‘Ask not, and you shall never receive.’ First of all, I had the vicarage of Percombe, up towards the moors. This came from a private friend. Next, the Duchy gave me the rectory of South Wingley. I had trouble enough to get it. I went up to London, and besieged the Council two or three times a day. People said they gave me the living to get rid of me from town. But it wasn’t so. Next I had Trelegh from the second Mrs. Vivian’s uncle. Yes, yes, preferment enough for one man. By-the-by, did you ever hear how near I was once to the lawn-sleeves and the bench? That was a close shave! I was staying in Bath, at the York House, and there I always dined in the coffee-room. Well, one day a gentleman came in and ordered dinner in the next box to mine—a sole and a chop. I observed a bottle of Madeira wine; and from his nicety and parlour ways, I judged him to be some big-wig, and very rich. I saw he looked about for a news Gazette, so I offered him mine, and exchanged a few words by way of getting known to him. He offered me a glass of wine, and of course I took it, and sat down to converse. We grew very friendly, and by-and-by it turned out that his name was Vivian, and spelt exactly like mine. It was growing late, and he took leave, but, to my surprise, invited me to dine with him the next day at Lansdowne Crescent. I was only too glad to go. It was a noble house, with a troop of servants and superb furniture, and, what was most to the purpose, a glorious feed. After dinner, at dessert-time, while we were talking over our wine, I saw, over the mantelpiece, a fine picture of Perceval, the Prime Minister at that time.[154] So I ventured to ask, ‘Is Mr. Perceval, sir, a relative of your family?’ ‘No, sir, no,’ he said. ‘I have his picture because I like his politics, and respect him as a Minister and as a man. I have been introduced to him, however, and I can claim some personal acquaintance with him. ‘Have you, my friend?’ thought I. ‘Then, take my word for it, I will make use of you as a stepping-stone in life.’ So, when it was nearly time to wish him good night, I said, ‘I have a favour to ask you, sir. I am going to town in a day or two, and I shall be deeply obliged if you will write a letter to Mr. Perceval, merely telling him that the bearer is a friend of yours, a clergyman in quest of some preferment, and that as he is the patron of so many good things in the Church, you will be much obliged to him if he will bestow something valuable on your friend.’ He looked rather glum at this, and twirled his fingers a bit, and at length said, ‘Why, no, Mr. Vivian, I can’t go so far as that. Consider, I have known you only a few hours, and have never heard you officiate—although, no doubt, you are well qualified to hold preferment in the Church. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I have a friend, the rector of the parish where Mr. Perceval lives, and I know he always attends his church. I will give you a letter to him, and he may suggest some opportunity of promoting your plan.’ Of course I jumped at this, took my letter, and was off by the mail the very next day. The first man I called on was, of course, the clergyman. It was on a Saturday, and by good luck he had been taken ill. I was shown in where he lay on a sofa, looking quite ghastly. ‘Have you got a sermon with you, Mr. Vivian?’ said he; ‘anything will do.’ I always took with me, wherever I went, some half-dozen, and I said so. ‘Because, as you see, I cannot go to church to-morrow, and a friend who was to have taken my duty has disappointed me. I shall be indeed thankful if you will undertake the work.’ This was the very thing; and accordingly I was in the vestry-hall the next morning, an hour before time, rigged out in full canonicals, hired for the day—silk and sarcenet—and my hair well frizzed, as you may suppose. Just before service I said to the clerk, ‘I am told that Mr. Perceval attends your church; can you point out to me his pew?’ ‘That I can, sir,’ said he, ‘in a moment. There it is in full front of the desk and pulpit, the third pew down, with the brass rods and silk curtains.’ Well, the service began; but the said pew was empty till the end of the Belief, when, lo and behold! in came the beadle, marching with great pomp, and after him Mr. Perceval and some friends. You may guess after that what eyes and ears I had for the rest of the congregation. There was the Prime Minister; I see him now, in his purple coat and cuffs, silk waistcoat—fine as Sisera’s—and with a wig that looked like wisdom itself. He was very attentive. I watched him, and saw how careful he was to keep time with all the service. At length came the last psalm, and up I went. The pulpit fitted me as if it had been made for me; and the cushion, I remember, was all velvet and gold. My text was, ‘Where is the wise man? where is the scribe? where is the disputer?’ etc. I saw that Mr. Perceval never took his eyes off my face all through the discourse. It was one of my very best sermons. I saw that he was delighted with it; and when I came to the end, I observed that he turned round and looked up at me, and whispered something to a gentleman who was with him, and then they both looked up at me and smiled. Said I to myself, ‘Humphrey, the golden ball is cast; thy fortune is made, as sure as rates and taxes. Look out for a bishopric, and that soon!’ I never was so happy in all my life. I dined that night at the Mitre in Fleet Street, on a rump-steak; and I often caught myself smiling and slapping my thigh and muttering. I saw the waiter stare when I said to myself, but in an audible voice, ‘Done for a guinea! Make way for my lord!’ Next day I went into the City to meet ——, who was in town on business. After he had settled what he came to do, he walked some way home with me. Well, sir, when we came to the Strand there was a dreadful uproar, people talking very low and seriously. At length a gentleman said to my companion, ‘Have you heard the dreadful news? A rascal called Bellingham[155] has shot Mr. Perceval dead in the lobby of the House of Commons!’ It was like a deathblow to me. Poor fellow! It cut me through like a knife. I was indeed a crushed man, clean dissolved, as the psalm says. And from that very hour I have been convinced and persuaded—ay, I do believe it like the Creed—that the very same ball that shot poor Perceval cut away a mitre from my head as clean as a whistle. Yes, I have never swerved from that belief all these years; and up to this day, when I say my prayers, as I do after I am in bed, I always begin with the Confirmation from ‘Defend, etc., this Thy servant.’”

OLD TREVARTEN:
A TALE OF THE PIXIES[156]

“Mount and follow! stout and cripple!
Horse and hattock, ‘but and ben;’[157]
Horses for the Pixie people,
Hattock for the Brownie men.”

People may talk if they please about the march of agriculture, and they may boast that by the discoveries of science a man will soon be able to carry into a large field enough manure for its soil in his coat-pocket, but there has been the ready answer, “Yes, and bring away the produce in his fob.” I am half inclined to agree with an old parishioner of mine, who used often to say, “It was an unlucky time for England when the phrase ‘gentleman farmer’ came up, and folks began to try their new-fangled plans—such as clover for horses and turnips for sheep.” “Rents,” he declared, “were never lower than when a tenant would pare and burn,[158] and take their crops out of every field, so as to carry off the land as much as he brought on it”—a theory on which, being a renter himself, he had thriven, and put by money for full fifty years. Equally original, by the way, were the devices cherished by my aged friend for the repair of roads. When Macadam had driven his first turnpike through the West, a public dinner was given in honour of the event; and being presented with a free ticket, and well coaxed into the bargain, Old Trevarten made his appearance as a guest. But it was observed that, amid all the jingling of glasses and cheering of toasts, he sat motionless and mute, if not actually sulky. At length the engineer, somewhat piqued at his silence, said, during a pause, “Why, sir, I am afraid that I have not had the honour of gaining your approval in this undertaking of mine.”

“To tell you the truth, sir,” was the slow and sturdy answer, “I don’t like your road at all, by no means.”

“Well, but what are your reasons, sir, for disliking what most people are pleased with?”

“Why, sir, you have had a brave lot of money out of the country, and there’s nothing as I see to show for it—’tis all gone!”

“Gone, sir, gone! Why, bless me, isn’t there the road—the fine, wide, level road?”

“Well, yes, sartainly; but where’s they matereyals that cost such a sight of taxes? You’ve smashed mun to nort: there’s pilm [dust] in the drought, and there’s mucks [mud] in the rain, but nowt else that I see. Now, when I wor way-warden of Wide Widger, I let the farmers have something to show for their money. Why, sir, ’tis ten year agone come Candlemas that I wor in office for the ways, and I put down stones as big as beehives, and there they be now!”

Access to such a living volume of bygone usages and notions was an advantage not to be despised, and it was long my custom to resort to “mine ancient” for information difficult to be obtained elsewhere. Once “I do remember me” that I encountered him in the middle of a reedy marsh on his farm. He paused, and awaited my approach, leaning on his staff just where the path crossed a bed of the cotton-rush, then in full bloom. I had gathered a handful of the stalks, each with its pod of fine white gossamer threads, like a bunch of snowy silk.

“Ha!” said he, with a kind of half alarm, “you bean’t afeared to pick that there?”

“Afraid? No; why should I be?”

“Why, some people think it’s unlucky to carry off the pisky wool; but perhaps you know from the Scriptures how to keep off any harm.”

I did know better than to reason against such fancies with a Cornish yeoman of threescore and fifteen, and I thought it a good opening for a saw or ancient instance.[159] “Pixies!” was my leading answer; “and who are they?”

“Ancient inhabitants,” was the grave reply—“folks that used to live in the land before us Christians comed here. So, at least, I’ve heerd my mother say. They are a small people.”

“And what about this wool? What use do they make of it.”

“Why, they spin it for clothing, and to keep ’em warm by night. They’d do a power of work for the farmers, and for a very small matter to eat and drink, too; and they would sing, evenings—sing and crowdie like a Christmas choir.”

The solemn tones of his voice, and the grim gravity of visage with which old Trevarten made known these mysteries, attested his own deep belief in their reality and truth. “Had I never seen those rings on the grass upon Hennacleave Hill—circles about a foot wide, of a darker colour than the rest of the turf?” he inquired, well knowing that I had, but rather rejoicing in an opportunity of enlightening me with scientific revelations of his own. “Did I know how they came there, and who made them?”

“No.”

“Well, that was surprising: he thought that the college teached such things, or why did it cost so much money to go there to learn? Howsomever, he would let me know about they rings. The piskies made mun, dancing hand-in-hand by night. They rise about midnight, and they put on their Sunday clothes, and they agree to meet in such or such a spot, and there one will crowdie and the others daunce, and beat out the time with their feet, till they’ve worn the shape of a round-about in the grass, and nort will wear out that ring for evermore!”

Deeply grateful for this information, I ventured to inquire, “And did you ever see any of these pixy people yourself?”

“Why, I can’t say for sartain that I didno seed mun; my mother hath—so I’ve yeerd her tell divers times. No; but I’ve seed their works, such as tying up the manes of the colts in stirrups for riding by night, and terrifying the cows into the clover till they wor jist a bosted with the wet grass. And I’ve been pisky-eyed more than once coming home from the market or fair; and I’ve yeerd mun at their rollicking night-times frayquently, but I can’t say that I ever seed their faytures, so as to know ’em again another time.”

“Well,” said I, as a sort of closing and clenching remark, “all I can say is that I wish I could lay hold of one of these pixies, just to look at—that’s all.”

“Do you?” was his quick rejoinder; “do you really desire it? I daresay I can oblige you one day. It is not a month agone that I’d all but catched one.”

“Indeed!” said I, half bewildered. “How? Where was it?”

“Why, sir, you see the case was this. I’d a bin to Simon Jude fair, and I stayed rather latish settling with the jobber Brown for some sheep, and so it wor past twelve o’clock at night before I come through Stowe wood; and just as I crossed Combe Water, sure enough I yeerd the piskies. I know’d very well where their ring was close by the gate, and so I stopped my horse and got off. Well, on I croped afoot till there was nothing but a gap between me and the pisky ring, and I could hear every word they said. One had got the crowder, and he was working away his elbow to the tune of ‘Green Slieves’ bravely, and the rest wor dauncing and singing and merrymaking like a stage-play. It made me just ’mazed in my head to look at ’em. Well, I thort to myself, if I could but catch one of these chaps to carry home! I’ve yeerd that there’s nothing so lucky in a house as a tame pisky. So I stooped down and I picked up a stone, oh, as big as my two fistes, and I swinged my arm and I scrashed the stone right into the ring. What a screech there was! Such a yell! and one in pertickler I yeerd screaming and hopping with a leg a-brok like a drashel. That one I was pretty sure of. But still, as it was very late, and my wife would be looking for me home, and it was dark also, so I thout I might as well come down and fetch my pisky in the morning by daylight. Well, sure enough, soon as I rose, I took one of these baskets with a cover that the women have invented—a ridicule, they call it—and down I goes to the ring. And do you know, sir, they’d a be so cunning—they’d a had the art for to carry their comrade clear off, and there wasn’t so much as a screed of one left! But, however,” said my venerable friend, seeing that I did not look quite satisfied with the evidence, “however, there the stone was that I drashed in amongst mun!”

Alas! alas! how often in after-days, when I have encountered the theories of men learned in the ’ologies, and pondered the prodigious inferences which they had deduced from a stratum here and a deposit there,—how irresistibly have my thoughts recurred to old Trevarten and his amount of proof, “There the stone was that I drashed in amongst mun”!