122 MY LIFE 



landowners in England, for that he was heir to a considerable 

 landed estate from which he never received anything, and 

 probably never should, owing to family circumstances, which 

 he stated. I then asked him if he knew a place called Turvey, 

 in Bedfordshire, to which he replied, " I ought to know it, 

 for I was born there, and my father owned the estate there 

 to which I am heir." I then felt pretty sure of my man, and 

 asked him if he remembered, during a very hard frost about 

 fifty years ago, shooting a pair of wild swans at Turvey. 

 " Why, of course I do," said he. " But how do you know it? " 

 " Because I was there at the time and saw you shoot them. 

 Do not you remember a thin, tall lad who came up to you and 

 said, ' That was a good shot,' and you replied, ' Oh ! you can't 

 miss them, they are as big as a barn door ' ? " " No," he said, 

 " I don't remember you at all, but that is just what I should 

 have said." His delight was great, for his story of how he 

 shot the two wild swans was not credited even by his own 

 family, and he made me promise to go to his house after the 

 lecture on the next night, and prove to them that he had not 

 been romancing. And when I went, I was duly introduced 

 to his grown-up sons and daughters as one who had been 

 present at the shooting of the swans, which I had been the 

 first to mention. That was a proud moment for the Rev. H. 

 H. Higgins, and a very pleasant one to myself. 



Let us now return to Turvey and my experiences there. 

 We lived at the chief inn in the place — perhaps the only one 

 except some small beer-shops — called The Tinker of Turvey. 

 The painted sign was a man with a staff, a woman, and a dog, 

 and we were told in the village that the tinker meant was 

 John Bunyan. But recent inquiry by a friend both in Bedford 

 and at Turvey shows that this is perhaps a mistake. In a 

 little book, " Turvey and the Mordaunts," by G. F. W. Munby, 

 Rector of Turvey, and Thomas Wright (of Olney), we are 

 told that there is a very rare pamphlet in the British Museum, 

 entitled, " The Tincker of Turvey, his merry pastime from 

 Billingsgate to Gravesend. The Barge being freighted with 

 mirth, and mann'd with Trotter the tincker, Yerker a cobbler, 

 Thumper a smith, and other merry fellows, every one of them 



