"The old squire, when he seed the lad ride like that, said at the finish-- "'Will you come back and whip in for me, for yer be the right sort?' "'Will I, yer honour? Sure I will,' said Tom, and his ugly mug broke out like May blows in sunshine, a friend standing by told us. Tom and the squire they never parted till Tom war buried under the sod of Barrow churchyard. "Up and down dale, war Moody's way. Nothing lived before him. He never stopped for hedge or ditch. Often 'tis told of 'im that he used to take guests of the squire's back to Shifnal, where they met the coach for London. Then Tom would drive his prime favourite in the yellow gig. He counted his neck for nothing, and didn't set no store on theirs, and they did say he would lep pikes and hedges same as if he war hunting, and never injured tongue of buckle or stitch of a strap." [Illustration: RUINS OF WENLOCK ABBEY IN 1778. _From an Engraving after a Drawing by Paul Sandby, R.A._] "Was that possible?" I exclaimed in amazement. "Lor bless yer, mam, everythin' war possible with Tom. They said here he war a devil incarnate on a horse, or in his shay, and nothing could stop him. Folks said he loved his old horse better than his soul." "What was the name of his horse?" [Sidenote: "OLD SOUL" TO RIDE] "'Old Soul,' right enough," answered Timothy; "a great lean beaste, sixteen hands and more. Any amount of bone and not a square inch of flesh, with a docked tail and a wicked wall eye. He kicked and bit, did Old Soul, as if he war the great Satan himself; and I've heard 'em say at the kennels, that there war none but Tom and one other man about the place as dared go near him to dress him down, for he would savage any one when he had a mind. Heels up, and ears back, and his eye the colour of a yule log at Christmastide, those were his ways. Yet Tom at covert side thought mountains of him. 'Old Soul and I must get to heaven together,' he used to say, 'for what the old chap wud do without me, or I without he, 'twould puzzle me to think. And 'tis the wickedest, cutest old devil that ever man sat across,' Tom used to swear, 'but if a man's got a spice of the true hunter in him, he blesses God to be on such a horse when hounds be running, devil or no devil.' "Once," continued Timothy, "I heard as Tom war lost. They hunted for 'un everywhere down beyond Kenley, where they had been in the morning. In those days the country there war very marshy in the winter time, for there wasn't a bit of draining. Well, I've heard it said as Tom went in, and it happened in this way. Tom war leading his horse, but the horse war wiser than Tom, for feelin' the ground shaky, he jerked up his head sudden like, and snapped the bridle and got away. Tom, he tried to leap out of the bog, but he couldn't, for sure he war sucked in and kept fast prisoner in the clay.