"Nothing soft about Mr. Jack. If all we hear be true, it's a pretty wild branch of the tree he comes from." "They say he's wild. No doubt; he always was. I can remember him a boy home for the holidays. He used to come down to the mill and poach my trout--a bit of a boy no higher than that"--and he put his hand against the table--"as fine a boy as ever I see. One day I caught him, and told him I'd either give him a thrashing or tell his uncle; for, do yer see, we allus called the old squire his uncle. "'All right,' said he, 'wait till I've landed this fish and we'll settle it between us like gentlemen.' Another time I found him in the orchard. 'Well, Master Jack,' says I, 'bean't you got enough apples at the Hurst, but you must come and plague me?' He thought a moment, then he looks up with that audacious flash in his eyes, and says, quiet enough: 'Stolen fruit is the sweetest, South. If you feel put upon, take it out of the Hurst Orchard. I give you leave.' What was to be done with a boy like that? Fear! He didn't know what fear was. Do any o' you remember that roan mare as the old parson had? Well, Master Jack hears us talking o' the spiteful beast one day, and nothing 'ud do but he must go off and ask the parson to let him ride 'un. Of course the old fellow said no. Two nights after that the young varmint breaks open the stables, takes out the mare, saddles her, and rides her out to the common. I was late at the mill that night, and I hears her come clattering down the yard like a fire-engine, with Master Jack on her back, his eyes flashing and his hair a-flying, and him a-laughing as if it was the rarest bit o' fun in the world. I'd just time to cut across the meadow to the five-barred fence, and here he come past me, making straight for the fence, waving his hand and shouting someut about Dick Turpin. Ah, and he took the fence, too, and when that vicious beast threw him, and we came up to him, lying all o' a heap, with his arm broke, and the blood streaming from his face--what's he do but laugh at us, and swear as we'd startled her! And as for fighting! There warn't a week but what he'd come to the mill, all cut and mauled, for the missis to wash him and put him to rights. He'd never go home to the Hurst those times. Even then the old squire and him didn't agree. The old man called him a Savage, and I hear as that's what they call him up in London, and yet there warn't a house in Leigh as he warn't welcome in. Many and many a time he's slept up in the mill loft after one of his harum-scarum tricks, and many's the time I've faced the old squire when he's come after him with a horsewhip." "They say that he run through all the money, as was his by rights, up in London in fast living," said the parish clerk, gravely.