"What did you do at the Wakes, and how long did they last?" I asked as old Timothy relapsed into silence. [Sidenote: OLD SHROPSHIRE PLEASURES] "Oh, they was most part a week," answered the old man. "There war too much fun then in folks, to let the fun die out so quick as it does now. Now, if a squire has a cricket-match, 'tis all over in no time. Piff-paff like a train through a tunnel. There's nought now but a smack, and a taste of jollity, and it dies with daylight. When I was a boy, it was altogether different. Us could work, and us could play, and us liked to take our fill, same as young bullocks on spring grass. Us used to dance and sing, run races, and jump for neckties and hat-bands, and play kiss-in-the-ring, and manage," said old Timothy, with a twinkle in his eye, "to stand by a pretty lass then, and to wrestle and box besides. They war merry times." And here his voice sank almost to a whisper, "And then there was cock-fightin'." "Cock-fightin'?" I enquired. "Have you ever seen much of that?" "Lord love yer!" retorted Master Theobalds, with kindly contempt. "Of course I have, and a prettier, more gentlemanly sport I b'aint acquainted with. I mind me of the good old time, when every squire had his own main of cocks, and many war the farmers as had a good clutch, and great war the pride of the missus in rearin' a good 'un round the Clee, and over at Bridgenorth. Folks used to say at Ludlow, as there were some as thought more of their cocks, than of their own souls. Why, marm, when I war a little un, we should have thought a town a poor benighted one-horse place as hadn't got its cock-pit. There used," continued old Timothy, "to be a fine place beyond what is now the vicarage, where they used to fight 'em regularly on Easter Monday, and at the May Fair at Much Wenlock. Every serving-man as had a touch of sport in his blood used to get leave to go 'cocking,' as they called it then, and a right merry sport it war, sittin' fine days on the spring grass, and seeing two game uns go tooth and nail for each other." "Did they put spurs on them?" I asked the old man. "Of course they did, and weighed 'em." And then old Timothy added, "Scores of times I've put on the spurs myself to oblige a squire, or a kindly farmer as had given me a jog back from the meet, or a lift on, when I war searchin' after a terrier." "Was there not a belief that a cock hatched in an owl or magpie's nest was sure to have luck in the ring?" I asked. [Sidenote: THE COCKFIGHTS OF THE PAST]