(_From a woodcut by T. Bewick, “British Birds.”_)] Chapter X. About the year 1800 a man named Watson was executed at Lynn for the murder of his wife and child. The body was taken to Bradenham Heath, and there gibbeted in irons. Some few years ago the gibbet was still standing, and at the foot of it Mr. H. Rider Haggard and his brother found, imbedded in the sod, the upper portion of the iron framing, including the headpiece, with a portion of the skull remaining in it. So it had been withdrawn from sight by kindly nature, in her pitying mood, and covered by the greensward. A lady of that neighbourhood, who died a few years ago, aged ninety-four, used to relate, that when she was a girl, she once crossed the gibbet common, and noticed that a starling had built her nest in the man’s ribs; later on some lovers of nature came from Shipdam and stole away the young birds. The remains of Watson’s irons are now deposited in the Norwich Gaol, among a very interesting collection of chains, gyves, irons, gang-chains, and burning girths for the “pale martyrs in their shirts of fire.” A noteworthy feature in this case was, as in that of John Whitfield, before mentioned, that it got about, in latter days, in the neighbourhood, that the man had been hung up alive, and watched till he died. Similarly, we have a story from Durham, showing that one Andrew Mills, gibbeted alive in 1684, for murdering his master’s three children, was kept in existence for some time by his sweetheart (of course), who, until she was prevented, gave him milk in a sponge at the end of a stick.[81] These kind of stories usually fall to pieces when they are examined, and it so happens that on the tombstone of the three unfortunate little children, in Merrington churchyard, are the words:--“He was executed and afterwards hung in chains”; but “_executed and_” have been nearly obliterated by deep chisel marks,[82] thus forming at once both the _post hoc_ and the _propter hoc_ of the story. As to the milk, and the sweetheart, this part of the fable is nothing but a free rendering--necessary under the circumstances--of the classical legends of Euphrasia and Evander, of Xantippe and Cimonos.[83] Tradition often does, but just as often--or oftener does not justify itself.[84] This suggests a few words upon the question of hanging alive in chains. Hollingshed, in his “Description of England”[85] says:--“In wilful murder done upon pretended (premeditated) malice, or in anie notable robbery,” the criminal “is either hanged alive in chains near the place where the fact was committed, or else, upon compassion taken, first strangled with a rope, and so continueth till his bones come to nothing.” Chettle, in “England’s Mourning Garment,”[86] speaking of the clemency of Elizabeth, says:--“Where-as before time there was extraordinary torture, as hanging wilfull murderers alive in chaines; she having compassion ... said their death satisfied for death.”