CONSTANCE CHUB AND WELRER. 211 



had, as he told me one dark night as he was rowing 

 me home from fishing, killed two men one in a 

 quarrel by accident with a bayonet, and the other 

 when in prison by spattering his brains out against 

 the wall with a stool, or small wooden seat, that they 

 had to sit upon. The man was a Sicilian, he told 

 me, and as he tried to stab him with a knife, he did 

 it in his own defence, adding -" if you'll believe me, sir, 

 I am not good to do harm to a mouse." It struck 

 'me that he was not quite the kind of fellow one 

 would choose to row one home in a gunning punt 

 on a night as dark as pitch if he had any kind of 

 ill-feeling towards one, and we had come over four 

 miles from the opposite side of the lake. 



However, he was a good kind of fellow, and I never 

 knew him do anything wrong, or quarrel with any- 

 body. He was a thick-set dark-looking fellow, with 

 a scowl on his face that might stand for bloody 

 murder, but he was in reality good-natured ; but of 

 the curiosities in the form of human flesh he was 

 about the greatest I ever remember. 



As a boatman he was first-rate, and he would row 

 away all day long without a murmur, but when out 

 of the boat he'd do nothing else, and with a large 

 pipe in his mouth would on his back lie upon a 



p 2 



