249 



Or kwinest or brass fardens, or such like, or anything out of the way, 

 I were stummered like just at first, and were just a going to say 

 I hadn't found nothing at all, when I thought of a bit of a lie ; 

 So I told 'em I'd got all they ax'd for, and had putten 'em carefully by, 

 To home in my cottage at Foxcote, and if they'd come up the next day, 

 I'd show 'em the bones and the kwines, and tell 'em exact where they 



lay. 

 So I gets me a lot of old kwines that the childer has oftentimes found, 

 And the plough will turn up by the score when they breaks up a piece 



of new ground. 

 And some half-a-score of old bones as I got for a pint of beer 

 From old Joe Smithers, the sexton, down by the churchyard here ; 

 And a piece of a broken pot as I'd throw'd at mj' misus's head, 

 Wlien she were a aggrawating about the drink, as she said ; 

 And I puts 'em out in the garden, and covers 'em up from the rain, 

 And waits till these 'ere gents should be looking in again. 

 The first as come was 'the doctor,' and he looked so mortial wise, 

 Thinks I he is sure to find out as I'm telling on him lies ; 

 But Lord ! when he seed the bones he took to 'em just as kind 

 As they'd been his own grandfather's as he'd known time out of mind ; 

 And he said 'twere a hancient Briton as somebody had drew'd,+ 

 And after they'd taken his pictur the Romans had had him slew'd. 

 But I know'd better than that, for old Joe Smithers said 

 Them bones was the bones of a woman as hadn't died in her bed, 

 For she'd been crossed in love, and drownded herself in a pond, 

 And that's why she werd'n't buried in cussicrated gi'ound. 

 Then I gives the kwines to the parson and tells him how they was lain. 

 Along with the bones in the tump, as he said they ought to ha' been ; 

 And I gave the young'un the pot, which I didn't say nothing about. 

 For he looked so grumpy and slj% I were fear'd he ha' found me out. 

 So they gives me a crown apiece, and I thanks 'em for favours past. 

 And I drinks to their healths, and hopes as this 'un won't be the last. 

 For I knows of another field -nith a main big tump of stones. 

 But I says nothing on it as yet, for I havn't got no more bones." 



t Kwines for coins. — Our Mend's orthography is a little uncertain. 



} My worthy neighbour has evidently misunderstood the observation of the 

 learned doctor. The latter knowing that a skeleton found in a tump must be that 

 of a Druid, the high priest of a pagan and idolatrous superstition formerly prevailing 

 in our now enlightened land, at once pronounced that the bones exhibited to him 

 were what they ought to have been, which is the same thing as if they had been so. 

 —P. P., Clerk of the Parish. 



Wednesday, 25th May. The Club met at Stroud, and proceeded 

 under the guidance of Mr. E. "Witchell to Kodboro' Hill, to examine 

 certain shallow depressions in the soO, with contiguous tumps of earth 

 very numerous in the upper surface and slope of the hill, and supposed 

 to be referrible to the hut-dwellings of the earliest inhabitants. These 

 had attracted the attention of Mr. Witchell, whose researches had been 



