New-built village of Wheelock, between Haslington and Sandbach. Joy at finding my father in no danger. Simple hospitality of farmer Owen. News of my arrival spread through the village. Bashful, boorish curiosity. Village scandal. Informed of the character of each individual; one accused of pride, another of selfishness, drunkenness, &c. A brutal broken butcher, who had spent a good fortune, the pest and terror of the place. Runs naked at prison-bars in Crewe Park, is horse-whipped by the Squire’s order. Informs against his brother Fox and farmer Owen; confuted, and punished for having killed hares himself, though unable to substantiate his own charge. Maims cattle, &c. Is the terror of my father. Tricks of my father’s landlord. Promises portions with his daughters, and when married, tells the husbands he will pay them the interest. Clerk of the parish, the barber, cobbler, ostler, and musician of the village. Lady’s maid returned from her travels, visits the village and her friends, speaks gibberish, is reported to understand language better than myself. Psalm-singing vanity of the clerk humbled. Village ideas of London. Cheshire dairies. Excursion to Crewe Cottage. Poetic ideas. Returned to write down some lines, nearly extempore. Crewe and Sheridan. The first a great man among the neighbouring boors, and his own footmen; the latter in the House of Commons, among the first men in the nation, or in the world. Welch manners. Red woollen shirts. Sunday mirth. The women till the earth, the men sit and smoke. Goat’s milk rich. Went to Nantwich. Inscription on a house curiously built. “Thomas Clease made this house in the XVIII yeare of the reane of our noble Queene Elezabeth.” Thomas Holcroft, a white-cooper at Boscow, near Ormskirk. Richard Fairhurst, farmer in the same neighbourhood, my father’s first cousin. Dobson, his uncle. My father born on Martin’s Muir, removed to Sheepcote hills, went to school at Rudderford.’ Mr Holcroft’s father lived in the latter part of his life near Knutsford, where he had married again. Mr Holcroft allowed him 20l. _per annum_, which, with a little shop and garden that he kept, maintained him comfortably. He allowed 12_l._ a year to his widow after his death, which happened in 1797. A tomb-stone was erected to his memory by his son’s desire, with the following inscription: ‘Here lies the body of Thomas Holcroft, who departed this life—1797, aged 80. He was a careful father, a kind husband, and an honest man.’ He was buried in Peavor church-yard, near Knutsford.