“I was born and bred up in one of Lord Denbigh’s cottages, at Kirby, in Warwickshire. My father was employed on the great place, that’s Newnham Paddocks, you know. He was a labourer, and brought up sixteen children, not one of whom, except me, has ever been summonsed before a justice, or got into any kind of trouble. I went to school till about nine, but I was always longing to be out in the fields at plough or birdkeeping; so I got away before I could do much reading or writing. But I kept on at Sabbath School, and learnt more than I did at the other. The young ladies used to teach us, and they’d set us pieces and things to learn for them in the week. My Cæsar (the only ejaculation Amos allows himself; he cannot remember where he picked it up), how I would work at my piece to get it for Lady Mary! I’ve fairly cried over it sometimes, but I always managed to get it, somehow. After a bit, I was taken on at the house. At first, I did odd jobs, like cleaning boots and carrying messages; and then I got into the garden, and from that into the stable, and then for a bit with the keepers, and then into livery, to wait on the young ladies. So you see I learnt something of everything, and was happy, and earning good wages. But I wanted to see the world, so I took service with a gentleman who was a big railway contractor. I used to drive him, and do anything a’most that he wanted. I stayed with him nine years, and ’twas while going about with him that I met my wife here. We got married down in Kent, thirty-six years ago. Yes (in answer to a laughing comment by his wife), I wanted some one to mind me in those days. That poaching trouble came about this way. I had charge for my master of a piece of railway that ran through Lord--------‘s preserves, in Wales. There were very strict rules about trespassing on the lines then, because folks there didn’t like our line, and had been putting things on it to upset the trains. One day I saw two keepers coming down the line, with a labourer I knew between them. He was all covered with blood, from a wound in his head. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘what’s the matter now?’ ‘I’ve been out of work,’ he said, ‘this three weeks, and I was digging out a rabbit to get something to eat, when they came up and broke my head.’ From that time the keepers and I quarrelled. I summonsed them, and got them fined for trespassing on the line; and then they got me fined for trespassing on their covers. We watched one another like hawks. I’d often lie out at night for hours in the cold, in a ditch, where I knew they’d want to cross the line, and then jump up and catch them; and they’d do the same by me. Once they got me fined £3: 10s. for poaching. I remember it well. I was that riled, I said to the justices right out, ‘How long do you think it’ll take me, gentlemen, to pay all that money, with hares only 1d. apiece?’ Then I went in for it. I remembered the text, ‘What thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’ I did it.