On the last occasion on which we saw him we were sent by a good old aunt, a Quaker lady who loaded us with presents for the old man, when he had gone to live in “Charity Row,” as it was called. Speaking upon matters connected with the history of the Dale—more particularly in reference to the Darbys and Reynoldses—the old man would grow eloquent; and the effect of a little present—a basket of strawberries or a packet of tobacco—had a wonderful effect in stimulating memory. Nothing was “open sesame,” however, like a drop of “Barnaby Spruce’s old Beer.” {292} Say you had sent for half-a-gallon of Spruce’s best October brewing, and he grew loquacious at once. “Remember him,” speaking of Richard Reynolds, he would say, arching his eye-brows, and growing animated, as recollections of the past came tripping upon the heels of each other. “I knew him well; all the poor knew him; the robins and the sparrows knew him, for he would carry crumbs a hundred miles in his pockets ‘for his robins.’ He made a vast fortune, and then everybody knew him; books, and tracts, and newspapers all talked about him. He was a Quaker—not a thin, withered, crotchety disciple of George Fox, but a full-fed Quaker, fair and ruddy, with eyes of blue that gave back the bright azure of the sky and lighted up a fine and manly face. I see him now—his light hair flowing in curls beneath his broad brimmed hat upon his shoulders. He yielded to every man his own, not only as concerned money, but in demands upon his respect. I have known him when in a fit of temper he thought he had spoken harshly or slightingly to any one, follow him home and apologise for his warmth. He loved everybody and was beloved by everybody in return. There’s my neighbour, she will tell you how when she was a child he would run into their shop in a morning, put half-a-crown into her hand, saying, ‘There, thee be a good child all day.’ He could not do with the colliers, though; he built schools for their children, but the mothers would not let them go unless he would pay them so much a day for allowing them to attend. They were curious schoolmasters in my day. Old John Share made nails and kept a school in the Dale; he was one of the most learned about these parts for a schoolmaster, but he never would believe that the earth turned round, because, as he said, the Wrekin was always in the same place. Then, there was old Carter, the chairmaker, of Madeley Wood; he always spelt bacon with a ‘k,’ and I remember him giving Charles Clayton a souce on the side of the head that sent him reeling, because he insisted upon it that it should be bacon. The Wrekin, sir, was always an object of admiration to Mr. Reynolds. He had an arbour made from which he could see the sun going down behind it (he used to revel in a good sunset), and