“What a horrible sacrilege!” I could not refrain from exclaiming.
“That’s what folks wud say now,” agreed Timothy, complacently; “but there war many as didn’t feel that then. Times be different. It war wrong, I suppose,” he added, “but the sport war that strong in Shropshire men then, they wud ha’ raced angels for pence and fought with Bibles, if so be folks would have laid on bets.”
But after a pause, he added, “They didn’t all go that far; some only bought dust from church chancels that they threw on their bird’s feathers, or chucked a pinch into the bags, and there never came no harm from that, for it gave the sextons and vergers a lucky penny, and made use of what otherwise would have been let lie on the midgeon heap. And even parsons didn’t themselves interfere there, ’cause the practice made sextons and church officials easy to find as nuts in the Edge Wood.”
Then I turned, and asked the old man about old Squire Forester’s hounds.
“Ay, they war grand ones.” And my old guest’s eyes flashed with enthusiasm. And then old Timothy went on to ask me if I had ever heard of Tom Moody, “as great a devil as ever rode a horse. There war none to beat Tom—Tom war whipper-in, and then huntsman, and bred a rider. One day he rode, as a little lad, an ugly cob with a pig-bristled mane. Somehow Tom hung on, jumped with the best, and never fell, though the leps that day, they said, were hugeous. I never seed Tom myself,” continued Timothy, “but grandam war his own cousin right enough, and it war a proud moment for any lad to clasp hands with old Tom. There war many then less proud to know a bishop or a peer, than to know Tom.
“The old squire, when he seed the lad ride like that, said at the finish—
“‘Will you come back and whip in for me, for yer be the right sort?’
“‘Will I, yer honour? Sure I will,’ said Tom, and his ugly mug broke out like May blows in sunshine, a friend standing by told us. Tom and the squire they never parted till Tom war buried under the sod of Barrow churchyard.
“Up and down dale, war Moody’s way. Nothing lived before him. He never stopped for hedge or ditch. Often ’tis told of ’im that he used to take guests of the squire’s back to Shifnal, where they met the coach for London. Then Tom would drive his prime favourite in the yellow gig. He counted his neck for nothing, and didn’t set no store on theirs, and they did say he would lep pikes and hedges same as if he war hunting, and never injured tongue of buckle or stitch of a strap.”
