to silly innocents, had no power to scare me from my pursuit. This avowal of my noble qualifications I thought would have won her heart forever, but I was mistaken. The keen-eyed hag, who never was seen to smile before, laughed outright at my proposal. ‘What, you want the old woman’s gold, master cut-throat of the muttons, do you? to cut her throat also, and make away with her in a month after marriage, like a troublesome old ewe!’ screamed she, as her spiteful broken snags grinned defiance, and her shrill tones broke out in laughs of mockery. I never saw mirth so damnable before! I felt myself the butt of her ridicule, humbled and degraded; and as my anger rose against the beldame, I resolved that since I could not wed her, to rob her would answer my purpose full as well. An opportunity was not long wanting; the little boys who had formerly been my favorites, and who in their innocence failed to recognize my altered character, I found it difficult to drive from me. A neighbour’s child one day asked me to lift him up to Rachel Ketch’s thatch, to take from it a wren’s nest which he had long watched, and said he was sure that the young ones were on the eve of flying. It was a winning little urchin that made the request, and I could not refuse him. The moment that I had raised him to a standing posture on my shoulders, he eagerly thrust his little hand into the thatch, and cried, ‘Dear dear, how cold!’ when a snake which he had felt, that had destroyed the young birds, and coiled itself round in the nest, darted out in his face, and the youngster shrieked and fainted in my arms. I carried him home, where he soon died of the fright, for it appeared he was not stung. I suspected there was a nest of those detestable reptiles in the old rotten straw thatch, and therefore poked it in all directions with a long hooked stick, and at last felt something attached to it; as I drew it forward and examined it, to my great astonishment I found it to be an old woollen stocking, closely stuffed with various golden coins. Here was a discovery! I felt myself a made man forever! The old woman was at this time in Carmarthenshire, where she had gone to enforce her claims to certain debts among her former neighbours; and therefore having no fear of detection, I pushed back the golden prize and went away, intending to return for it at night. As I anxiously watched the hours and minutes pass away, reflecting the while on my newly-acquired wealth, a raging savage spirit of avarice so possessed me, that I determined to plunder old Rachel’s cottage of all the money I could find. Night came, and with breathless haste I made an entrance through the thatch on the side furthest from the street, and at midnight went away with a heavy booty, the greater part of which, I buried beneath the floor of my own cottage, determined to seek the first opportunity of quitting Tregaron forever. Fortune seemed to favor me beyond my hopes; Squire Graspacre having a