THORSBY AMONGST THE WOODBURNS. Amongst the Castleborough gentlemen who were on terms of intimacy with the family of Simon Degge, and who, therefore, frequently was to be met at Hillmartin, was a Mr. Henry Thorsby. This Mr. Thorsby was a young man of one of the oldest and most leading families of Castleborough. He was a manufacturing hosier; hosiery being one of the two great staples of the town—the other being lace. These hosiers employed a great number of frame-work-knitters in both town and country. These people, in fact, handloom-weavers, worked in the stocking-frame, receiving the cotton from the hosier, and bringing in to the town-warehouse their woven stockings at so much per dozen every Saturday. A first-rate house, therefore, employed some hundreds of men or women, as it might he, for both men and women are stocking-weavers, or, as they are termed, stockingers. Mr. Henry, or as he was more commonly called, Harry Thorsby, was the son of a great hosier, who had led a very free and _bon vivant_ life; had been a fearful sufferer from the gout; and had died recently from an attack of it which had been driven to the stomach. He had left only his widow and this one son, who was regarded as one of the most substantial burghers of the place. He had large warehouses, a large and handsome house, in which his mother presided, and to whom he was the apple of her eye. In her eyes her son Harry was one in a thousand; never was such a handsome, good-hearted fellow; he was, she said, as good as twenty daughters to her, and always had been. In fact, Harry Thorsby was a very good-looking and pleasant young man. He was something above the middle height, rather broadly built, but extremely active. He had a handsome, somewhat large face, of what is called the oval contour, well-defined features, a bushy head of black hair, a rather dark complexion, and well-shaped black whiskers. Thorsby, like his father, had a very sociable and rather jovial turn—that was the rock in his path. His mother, indeed, had often with tears shown him that danger, and implored him to take warning by his father’s example, who had shortened his life by indulgence in wine, and what he called good company; and who might have possessed double the wealth, and the first place in the town,—yes, not even second to Mr. Simon Degge,—had he avoided the snare of good fellowship. Harry would not hurt his mother’s feelings for the world, and he always said,—“Oh, mother, you need not have any anxiety on my account. I am not by any means fond of wine, though I do like a little pleasant company; but I shall not forget what I have seen, and I shall not forget you, mother.”