The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and Other TalesMore, Hannah
General
The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and Other Tales
More, Hannah
Christian life -- Fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction; Short stories
Rachel, whenever she got near home, used to drop her trade of
fortune telling, and only dealt in the wares of her basket. Mr.
Wilson, the clergyman, found her one day dealing out some very
wicked ballads to some children. He went up with a view to give her
a reprimand; but had no sooner begun his exhortation than up came a
constable, followed by several people. "There she is, that is the
old witch who tricked my wife out of the five guineas," said one of
them; "do your office, constable, seize that old hag. She may tell
fortunes and find pots of gold in Taunton jail, for there she will
have nothing else to do!" This was that very Farmer Jenkins, whose
wife had been cheated by Rachel of the five guineas. He had taken
pains to trace her to her own parish: he did not so much value the
loss of the money, as he thought it was a duty he owed the public to
clear the country of such vermin. Mr. Wilson immediately committed
her. She took her trial at the next assizes, when she was sentenced
to a year's imprisonment. In the mean time, the pawnbroker to whom
she had sold the silver cup, which she had stolen from poor Sally's
master, impeached her; and as the robbery was fully proved upon
Rachel, she was sentenced for this crime to Botany Bay; and a happy
day it was for the county of Somerset, when such a nuisance was sent
out of it. She was transported much about the same time that her
husband Giles lost his life in stealing the net from the garden
wall, as related in the second part of poaching Giles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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