14 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



did not partly believe that such a thing had occasionally been seen 

 on very dark nights. 



" Young Timothy Pickering, the respectable carpenter of the village 

 (he who had married Miss Ord, the papermaker's daughter), had a 

 cat of surprising beauty. I once made some verses on this cat, and 

 as Mr Meynell, the lay tutor, fancied that I alluded to himself, he 

 whipped me without any kind of trial. Timothy Pickering had an 

 assistant carpenter, by name Taylor. He had a wen over his eye as 

 large as a pigeon's egg. 



" As you went down the road below the blacksmith's, you were 

 close on the village tailor's cottage. His name was Lawrence 

 Thompson, but everybody called him Low Thompson. He had lost 

 half of the fore-finger of his right hand, was a facetious and talkative 

 fellow, and could sing a good song. He would now and then get 

 an evening invitation to the school, where he sang the popular song 

 of the ( White Hare ; ' but I remember only one stanza of it, viz. 



' Squire Salvin rode up to the hill, 



And he damned them for they were all blind. 

 Do you see how my bitch, Cruel, leads ? 

 Do you see how she leaves them behind ? ' 



" Opposite Low Thompson's cottage, across the road, stood Tudhoe 

 Old Hall, tenanted by a family named Patterson. A wall flanked 

 the house, and close to this wall there grew some ancient sycamore 

 trees, with holes in them, frequented by starlings. I used to climb 

 these trees and take the starlings' nests. Formerly a Squire Salvin 

 of the Croxdale family used to live at this Old Hall, and here he kept 

 his harrier hounds. 



" The vicinity of Tudhoe produced vast quantities of hazel-nuts ; 

 we were allowed to go in quest of them, and to bring off as many 

 nuts as we could stow away upon our persons. The nut-season 

 always closed with a recreation-evening at the school. It was 

 termed Nut-crack-night, and Low Thompson invariably honoured 

 the festival with his smirking presence, never forgetting the song of 

 the < White Hare.' 



" Old Joe Bowren (the same person noticed in my autobiography), 

 of vast bodily bulk, came to Tudhoe School about this time, from Sir 

 John Lawson's at Brough Hall. We soon became hand in glove. 



