THE HERMIT OF BED-COAT'S GREEN. 303 



the hite Dr. Sutherland was one of the authorities consulted. It ceased 

 only because his mother intensely disliked it. The family now lived 

 at Red-Coat's Green, near Hitchen, in the house where the hermit 

 afterward lived and died. He hunted occasionally with a gentleman 

 of the neighborhood. lie rode either with his shirt outside, or in a 

 nankeen suit, barefooted, with a small cap, or bareheaded, his long- 

 hair streaming in the wind. He bestrode a high-peaked saddle, and 

 used a rope for his bridle and stirrups. Sometimes, he would ride in 

 a carriage, his hair done up in curl-papers. He became attentive to 

 a young lady, to whom he sent a pair of doves in a cage, but she re- 

 turned the present. He persecuted her sadly, by prowling around the 

 house. His mother died in 1849. He was then the eldest surviving 

 son, but a younger one was left executor. A fatal objection to his 

 acting in that capacity w\ns, that he would not sign his name to any 

 paper bearing her Majesty's stamp. He held that she was not the 

 rightful heir to the throne, and would not use a postage or receipt 

 stamp lest he should seem to admit her supremacy. But he did not 

 scruple to use a coin bearing her image. 



He kept his mother's body in the house from the 24th of October, 

 1849, to January, 1850, promising each day to let her be buried "to- 

 morrow." The greater part of his time was spent beside the corpse. 

 At length his brother interfered and buried the body. It has been 

 published that he was heart-broken at his mother's death. His rela- 

 tives doubt the depth of this attachment. He, indeed, expi*essed him- 

 self as much attached to her, and intimated that he would die with 

 her; but she often said that he never showed his affection by gratify- 

 ing one of her wishes. However, he may have felt real sorrow at her 

 death, and this seems to be implied by the fact that he allowed things 

 in the house to remain just as they w r ere when she died ; her letters 

 and money untouched, and the beds as they were then made. In fact, 

 his distress seemed genuine. He often told a neighbor that he w r ould 

 willingly have died for her, and he would weep bitterly at the mention 

 of her name. 



His life as a hermit now began, but, how r ever great his distress, we 

 cannot attribute to it his strange mode of life. His brother believes 

 that he afterward appeared w r orse only because all restraint was re- 

 moved. His brother and sisters could not now live with him. I 

 believe he never saw the latter again, while he became estranged from 

 the former because of his interference about the interment. Lucas 

 spoke in the bitterest terms of his brother, and even left a hay-stack 

 untouched, all his life alleging that he would hold him responsible for 

 it. Still, his brother visited him several times, and was received. It 

 is important to observe that he made a will a few years after his 

 mother's death, wherein he evinced no animosity toward his brother, 

 nor displayed any eccentricity in the disposition of his property. The 

 appen ranee of the house bespoke the character of the occupant. "Win- 



