He settled in a Norfolk village, turned an honest stock-breeder, and prospered greatly; but there was always a rumour that he had been convicted of some sort of stealing.
A farmer's daughter, however, fell in love with him and he asked her from her father.
"No," said the old yeoman; "I've nothing against you, but no child of mine shall wed a man who has been in trouble for stealing."
The daughter cried and implored, and at last sobbed out, "Willie only took a horse."
"Why," exclaimed the farmer, "didn't ye say so before! Here have I been treating a respectable man as if he had been a thief!"
The Dead Defunct.
A learned weaver, in stating his case before the provost of Irvine in Ayrshire, in the days when hand-loom weaving was a leading industry in that town, having had occasion to speak of a party who was dead, repeatedly described him as the defunct.
Irritated by the iteration of a word which he did not understand, the provost exclaimed—
"What's the use o' talking so much about this child you call the defunct? Cannot ye bring the man here and let him speak for himsel'?"
"The defunct's dead, my lord!" replied the weaver.