This is Mr. Hawker’s version of the story of the end of the pet toad, which is at variance with that related by the Rev. P. W. Molesworth, whose authority is more trustworthy than that of Mr. Hawker, a gentleman given to romancing. “Black John’s lair was a rude hut, which he had wattled for a snug abode close to the kennels. He loved to retire to it, and sleep near his chosen companions, the hounds. When they were unkennelled he accompanied and ran with them on foot, and so sinewy and so swift was his stunted form that he was very often in their midst at the death.” John Arscott had another follower called Dogget. “My son Simon” or simply “Simon” he was wont to call him. He also ran after the foxhounds. There exists a fine ballad on the “Hunting of Arscott, of Tetcott,” in which Simon is mentioned. Mr. Frank Abbott, gamekeeper at Pencarrow, but born at Tetcott, informed me, concerning Dogget:-- “Once they unkennelled in the immediate neighbourhood of Tetcott, and killed at Hatherleigh. This runner was in at the death, as was his wont. John Arscott ordered him a bed at Hatherleigh, but to his astonishment, when he returned to Tetcott, his ‘wife’ told him all the particulars of the run. ‘Then,’ said Arscott, ‘this must be the doing of none other than Dogget: where be he?’” Dogget was soon found in the servants’ hall, drinking ale, having outstripped his master and run all the way home. The ballad above mentioned begins as follows:-- In the month of November, in the year fifty-two, Three jolly Fox-hunters, all sons of the Blue, Came o’er from Pencarrow, not fearing a wet coat, To take their diversion with Arscott of Tetcott. Sing fol-de-rol, lol-de-rol, etc. The daylight was dawning, right radiant the morn When Arscott of Tetcott he winded his horn; He blew such a flourish, so loud in the hall, The rafters resounded, and danced to the call. Sing fol-de-rol, etc. In the kitchen the servants, in kennel the hounds, In the stable the horses were roused by the sounds, On Black-Bird in saddle sat Arscott, “To-day I will show you good sport; lads, hark, follow, away!” Sing fol-de-rol, etc. To return to Black John. His wonted couch when he could not get back to Tetcott at night was a bed among the reeds or fern of some sheltering brake or wood, and he slept, as he himself used to express it, “rolled up, as warm as a hedge-boar, round his own nose.” One day he was covered with snow, and found to all appearance dead. He was conveyed to Tetcott and put in a coffin. But as he was about to be buried, and whilst the service was proceeding, a loud thumping noise was heard within the coffin. The lid was removed, and he sat up. He had been in a long trance, but the funeral ride and jolting had revived him, and, said he, “When I heard the pa’sson say ‘Earth to earth and dust to dust,’ I thought it high time to bumpy.” [Illustration: OLD TETCOTT HOUSE]