_Thos._ “Seventy year old this Christmas, Sir. I wur barn at Woolstone, in the hard winter, when I’ve heard tell as volks had to bwile their kettles wi’ the snaw.” _Squire._ “I want to know something about your family, Thomas.” _Thos._ “Well, Sir, I bean’t no ways ashamed of my family, I can assure ’ee. I’ve a got two zons, and vour daaters. One on ’em, that’s my oldest bwoy, Sir, wur all droo’ the Crimee wars, and never got a scratch. In the Granadier Guards, Sir, he be. A uncommon sprack[25] chap, Sir, though I says it, and as bowld as a lion; only while he wur about our village wi’ t’other young chaps, he must allus be a fighting. But not a bad-tempered chap, Sir, I assure ’ee. Then, Sir--” _Squire._ “But, Thomas, I want to know about those that came before you. What relation was Timothy Gibbons, whom I’ve heard folks talk about, to you?” _Thos._ “I suppose as you means my great-grandvather, Sir.” _Squire._ “Perhaps so, Thomas. Where did he live, and what trade did he follow?” _Thos._ “I’ll tell ’ee, Sir, all as I knows; but somehow, vather and mother didn’t seem to like to talk to we bwoys about ’un.” _Squire._ “Thank ’ee, Thomas. Mind, if he went wrong it’s all the more credit to you, who have gone straight; for there isn’t a more honest man in the next five parishes.” _Thos._ “I knows your meanings good, and thank ’ee kindly, Sir, tho’ I be no schollard. Well, Timothy Gibbons, my great grandvather, you see, Sir, foller’d blacksmithing at Lambourn, till he took to highway robbin’, but I can’t give ’ee no account o’ when or wher.’ Arter he’d been out, may be dree or vour year, he and two companions cum to Baydon; and whilst hiding theirselves and baiting their hosses in a barn, the constables got ropes round the barn-yard and lined ’em in. Then all dree drawed cuts[26] who was to go out fust and face the constables. It fell to Tim’s two companions to go fust, but their hearts failed ’em, and they wouldn’t go. So Tim cried out as ‘he’d shew ’em what a Englishman could do,’ and mounted his hos and drawed his cutlash, and cut their lines a-two, and galloped off clean away; but I understood as t’other two was took. Arter that, may be a year or two, he cum down to a pastime on White Hos Hill, and won the prize at backswording; and when he took his money, fearing lest he should be knowed, he jumped on his hos under the stage, and galloped right off, and I don’t know as he ever cum again to these parts. Then I’ve understood as things throve wi’ ’un, as ’um will at times, Sir, wi’ thay sort o’ chaps, and he and his companions built the Inn called ‘the Magpies,’ on Hounslow Heath; but I dwon’t know as ever he kep’ the house hisself, except it med ha’ been for a short while. Howsomever, at last he was took drinking at a public-house, someweres up Hounslow way, wi’ a companion who played a cross wi’ ’un, and I b’live ’a was hanged at Newgate. But I never understood as he killed any body, Sir, and a’d