CH. III.] Grindum. 51 



in such a miserable half-starved condition 

 that he left them alone. 



Our parson called on them three times — 

 the first time the wife told him they did not 

 like strangers and parsons in particular ; 

 the second time the husband told him to 

 clear out sharp, or he would do him a mis- 

 chief ; and the third time the man took up a 

 knife and began sharpening it, preparatory, 

 he said, to cutting the parson's throat ! 



Two months after this the man, after 

 sitting drinking in the village pot-house all 

 the morning, stepped round to an old mid- 

 wife and asked her " to come and lay his 

 wife out." The woman went and did her 

 work and said nothing at the time, but later 

 on it was whispered about that she had told 

 some of her pals that " the poor crittur was 

 black and blue, and that it was on her mind 

 that the husband had murdered her ! " 

 After this, as I passed the cottage, I often 



