As we left the cottage I met the neighbour of the Malones, old Timothy Theobalds. He was a shrivelled little old man, had been ount, or mole-catcher, for many years, had driven cattle to market, and I have also heard, was once earth-stopper to the Hunt. If what his neighbours say is true, old Timothy is not now far off a hundred. He receives annually a small pension collected from three county families, has, I am told, cakes and beer at Yule-tide from his neighbours, and in his own words, "a snap of somethin' tasty, when he has a mind, wherever he goes." The old man is excellent company for all his years, and has many a good story to tell, of folks long since dead, and of the wild ways and curious customs of old Shropshire, before the days of railroads, when folks still believed in witches, and in the power of divining rods, and danced, and made merry at wakes and fairs. Like many other old men, "Daddy" Theobalds is not exempt from grumbling, and can use language, I fear, "fit to blow your head off" if provoked. According to him, "Life's a poor thing now. No fun nor luck left. Yer mayn't even get a shillin' nowadays for a vote if so be as yer has one; though what good a vote can do a poor man if he can't sell it, I don't know. They Radicals," he told me once, "were grand at givin'; but their gifts were nought but mugs wi'out beer, or dishes wi'out beef; they brought nought when yer speered in, but fandangles, flummery and folly." Old Timothy I met leaning on his stick before his door, clad in a long embroidered smock. He pushed open the door. "Come in, marm," he says, "and sit yer down before the fire." I entered his house whilst Bess dashed off to fetch the pug-pup, exclaiming, "We must remember it is his Easter Sunday," and I and old Timothy were left alone. I made a remark upon the fine day, and told old Timothy about the morning service and the lovely flowers. Old Timothy did not respond. He holds to church on Sunday, but rather as a preparation to a Sunday dinner, than anything else, I fear; but as to flowers, he "doesn't think much of they, leastways not in churches." "When I war a lad," he said, "folks kept they for May Day, and the lads and lasses then went out and pulled blossoms and danced, for the fun of the land wasn't all dead then, as it is now. That be the proper use of blows." Then, after a pause, in a weary voice old Timothy went on to say, "'Tis a deal decenter now, no doubt, more paint about and print readen', but the fun and jollity be clean dead. When I war young, folks often had a tidy bit saved, and when they had 'a do' they spent it at home. The missus would bake Yule-tide cakes or all souls, or snap-jacks, accordin' to the season, and the maister brewed a barrel of ale, and then the couple wud call in the neighbours. Now 'tis hoard up, and go away, as if yer could only laugh in London or Birmingham, and never a cake or a sup for friends or neighbours.