BOYHOOD. 17 



for the coxcombry of his verse. Swaggering Billy 

 was not a bad prototype of the Ingoldsby " Smuggler 

 Bill : " 



" Smuggler Bill is six feet high, 

 He has curling locks, and a roving eye, 

 He has a tongue, and he has a smile, 

 Train'd the female heart to beguile." 



Old Bob, the oont-catcherj- celebrated the country 

 round, also, as the best mower he could mow from 

 three-quarters to an acre of grass in a day, the average 

 of good work being half an acre. The old chap knew 

 a good deal about hares and pheasants, as well as 

 moles. He sang a song commencing : 



" Tis my delight, on a starlight night," etc. 



Next came the turn of Tim Hughes, the shepherd, 

 a tall, gaunt, lean old chap, over six feet ; he had 

 a dumpy little wife just up to his elbow. Abraham 

 Lincoln and his wife (" the long and the short "), 

 whenever I have seen their portraits, have recalled 

 old Tim. He was tongue-tied, and had a curious 

 lisp. His song smacked of the Arctic regions, though 

 certainly he had never been ten miles from home in 

 his life. This was the first stanza as I remember it : 



" Hereth a whale, hereth a whale, 

 Hereth a whale fith, he crieth, 

 An' she blowth at every spring, brave boyth, 

 An' she blowth at every spring." 



Tim was the son of a celebrity in her day " Betty 

 Hughes, the witch of Fowden." She had been con- 

 sulted, it was popularly believed, by the nobility and 



1 Mole-catcher. 

 C 



