ANCESTRY 27 



kettleful of crumbs over his shoulders for his nephew and 

 namesake's fowls. It is said that he once pulled up a 

 number of fruit-trees which the nephew, Richard's father, 

 had not planted rightly, and that it was this interference 

 which drove the young man to America in 1837. He was 

 the ' ghoul of the old mill ' described in ' Reminiscences, 

 Notes, and Relics of ye Old Wiltshire Towne,' by William 

 Morris of the Swindon Advertiser. 



' He was rather above the middle height, and rather 

 stout and heavy built. He used to wear just about the 

 same articles of dress as other people, but he wore them 

 different from most people. For instance, he wore heavy 

 hobnailed boots, which were never laced up, and the 

 tongues of which were always lopping about on the 

 fronts ; he wore thick worsted stockings, but they were 

 always down about his ankles ; he wore breeches without 

 braces, open at the knees, and which were saved from 

 dropping down by a regular and persistent " hitching up." 

 His coat and waistcoat were never buttoned up, while his 

 shirt was always unfastened and open, leaving in full view 

 his hair-covered breast, which appeared to be a continua- 

 tion of his grizzly beard, which was surmounted by such a 

 shaggy head of hair as was but seldom to be seen. His 

 favourite position and occupation was, after he had got his 

 mill going, to rest his elbows on the bottom half of the mill- 

 door, at the point where he could command a view of 

 the lane, and of any children who might venture to enter 

 it from the road end. With his elbow resting on his 

 clenched fist, he would be content to wait for hours, like 

 a cat watching for a mouse, in the hope of meeting with 

 some children, on whom he might scowl, and frighten out 

 of their lives.' 



It was to make up for his shortcomings that his younger 

 brother was called to Swindon in 1816. He died in 1854. 



Of the eight children of John Jefferies (the last of whom, 

 Fanny, I believe, died in 1901, aged eighty-eight), two are 

 interesting here — James Luckett, the father of Richard, 

 and John Luckett, who died in 1856, at the age of thirty- 



