cliff and planted ready for invaders. Her grandmother had spoken often of the time when all the men from the Ratcliffe property, away west, had followed somebody that wanted to send the King away, but Mary's knowledge of this circumstance was severely indefinite. The lads in the place would have followed their Squire had he chosen to imitate "Ratcliffe," but the Squire of that day was a quiet man who liked the notion of keeping his head on his shoulders. Mary knew of one country beyond England, and she conceived that Englishmen were meant to thrash the inhabitants of that country on all possible occasions: beyond this her knowledge of Europe and the globe did not extend. Her function in the village was that of story-teller, and her house was a place of meeting for all the lads. She taught aspiring youths to smoke, and this harmful educational influence she supplemented by teaching her pupils many wild stories of a ghostly character. Her own sons had been four in number; one of them survived as an old one-armed man; the others were drowned. But when Mary got her little school of listeners about her, she said it made her feel "as if Tom and the other bairns were back agyen." Smart lads used to leave the village and come back after many days with flat caps and earrings, and a sailorly roll. Mary would say, "That should be Harry's Tommy, by the voice. Is that so, hinny?" and when Harry's Tommy answered "Yes," Mary would say, "Your awd pipe's on the top o' the oven; sit thee doon and give us your cracks." Mary's pupils all had pipes which were kept on the oven-top for them, and she was much distressed if she found that anyone smoked a pipe belonging to a lad who had been drowned. When the school gathered in the dark evenings, Mary liked to scold a little about the decay of manly spirit. In her time the men used to watch at night till the low black lugger stole into the bay. Then some discreet farmer would hear a trampling of horses in his stables, and if in the morning Bet and Ball and Matchem were splashed a good deal, and tired, there was always the keg of sound spirits at the kitchen door or in one of the mangers. Mary had often gone down the north road and up the Dead Man's Trail to listen for the Preventive men, and she spoke with glee of the fun, for she had been swift of foot, and her imitation of the Jenny Howlet's cry was perfect.