286 Customs of Wishford and Barford in Grovely Forest. 



Maggot." This has been told in this Magazine (xvii., 317 a), and 

 its moral is a caveat for 



" charmin lasses who mid goo 

 A gipsyen to Grovely," 



and to such as are able still to crack nuts and eat them, lest they 

 swallow such a laidly }oorm as that which in process of time 

 "arose one day and killed the maiden." 



The tragedy, to my mind, is that of Mrs. Collier, of Steeple 

 Langford, of whom some of us will hear on Thursday, and who, 

 according to the laudable custom of the Vale of Wylye had reared 

 a pretty good sized family. Walker tells her story in his Sufferings 

 of the Clergy (II., 227). Her husband, the rector, had already 

 been threatened, before the general ejection, and had left his home. 

 His wife and their eleven children were turned out in the snow ; 

 and six nights passed before any villager dared to harbour them 

 in a cottage. They fetched sticks from Grovely Wood upon their 

 backs, and lived upon barley bread, when they could get it. Though 

 the rectory was valued at about £350 a year, according to Walker,^ 

 it is given as £65 in MS. Lansd. 459, fo, 158 — Wilts Arch. Mag., 

 xix., 196. The income was enjoyed until the Restoration by one 

 Mr. Nathan Giles, a sad litigious fellow,"- who used to preach 

 (as Walker records) twice a Sunday with a pistol hanging from his 

 neck. In the course of those 15 years, the Collier cliildren were 

 dispersed in menial service or as common soldiers. Only Arthur, 

 the youngest, was so fortunate as to be " placed to Winchester 

 school, &c," though Mr. Kirby does not record him as a scholar 

 on the foundation of the college ; and after the restoration he 

 matriculated at Pembroke, and removed to New College. Two of 

 his brothers were taken prisoners in the Pen ruddock rising, in 

 1665, and were sent to hard labour, as slaves in Jamaica. Others 

 were apprenticed to " mean trades " in London. 



1 hope that the good freeholders of Wishford and Barford (secure 



' After the Restoration Bp. Seth Ward computed the value of Steeple 

 Langford rectory as .£400 in his Notitia (circa 1667) ii. p. 5, and recorded 

 that Bp. Duppa (cir. 1642) reckoned it at £300. So Walker's estimate seems 

 fair enough. 



2 Sufferings, ii., 227, cf. Calamy, Ejected Ministers, ii., 765 ; iv., 882. 



