“That grave on the right hand of the path as you go down to the porch has not one blade of grass on it, and never will. That’s Will Pooly’s grave, that was hanged unjustly.”
“Indeed! How came that about?”
“Why, you see, they got poor Will down to Bodmin, all among strangers; and there was bribery and false swearing; and so they agreed together, and hanged poor Will. But his friends begged the body, and brought the corpse home here to his own parish; and they turfed the grave, and they sowed the grass twenty times over; but ’twas all of no use, nothing would grow—he was hanged unjustly.”
“Well, but, Tristam, what was he accused of? What had Will Pooly done?”
“Done, your honour? Done? Oh! nothing at all, except killed an exciseman.”
Among the “king’s men” whose achievements haunted the old man’s memory with a sense of mingled terror and dislike, a certain Parminter and his dog occupied a principal place.
“Sir,” said old Tristam one day to the vicar, “that villain Parminter and his dog murdered with their shetting-irons no less than seven of our people at divers times, and they peacefully at work at their calling all the while.”
Parminter was a bold officer, whom no threats could deter, and no money bribe. He always went armed to the teeth, and was followed by a large fierce dog, which he called Satan. This animal he had trained to carry in his mouth a carbine or a loaded club, which, at a signal from his master, Satan brought to the rescue.
“Ay, they was audacious rascals—that Parminter and his dog; but he went rather too far one day, as I reckon,” said old Tristam, as he leaned on his spade talking to the vicar.
“Did he, Trim? in what way?”