every Sabbath day, and always voted in the
vestries that what hath a be ought to be, and
so on, I do think that such ones as old Cherry
Parnell never ought to be allowed to meddle
with such things as thunder and lightning."
What could I—what could any man in his
senses—say to this?

The great charmer of charms in this strange
corner of the world, is a seventh son born in
direct succession from one father and one mother.
Find such a person, and you have " the sayer of
good words" always at your command. He is
called in our folk-lore the doctor of the district.
There is such an old man in my hamlet,
popularly called Uncle Tony Cleverdon. He was
baptised Anthony; but this has been changed
by kindly village parlance and the usage of the
west. For with us the pet name is generally
the short name, and any one venerable from age
and amiable in nature, is termed, without
relationship, but merely for endearment, "uncle" and
"aunt." Uncle Tony has inherited this endowment
in a family of thirteen children, he being
the seventh born. He often says that his lucky
birth has been as good as " a fortin" to him all
his life; for, although he is forbidden by usage
and tradition to take money for the exercise of
his functions, nothing has hindered that he should
always be invited to sit as an honoured guest at
the table furnished with good things in the
houses of his votaries. Uncle Tony allowed me,
as a vast favour, to take down from his lips some
of his formularies: they had never been
committed to writing before, he said; not, as I
believe, for more than three centuries, for they
smack of the middle ages. He very much
questioned whether their virtue would not be utterly
destroyed when he was gone, by their being
"put into ink."

Uncle Tony was like an ancient augur in the
science of birds. " Whenever you see one
magpie, alone by himself," said he, with a look of
inimitable sagacity, " that bird is upon no good:
spit over your right shoulder three times, and
say:

                   Clean birds by sevens,
                   Unclean by twos,
                   The dove in the Heavens
                    Is the one I choose!"

Among the myriads of sea and land birds that
throng this coast, the raven is king of the rock.
The headland and bulwark of the slope of
Holacombe is a precipice of perpendicular rock.
There, undisturbed (for no bribe would induce
a villager to slay them, old or young), the ravens
revel, and reign, and dwell. One day, as we
watched them in their flapping flight, said
Uncle Tony to me, " Sometimes, sir, these wild
creatures will be so merciful that they will even
save a man's life." " Indeed! How?" " Why,
sir, it once came to pass on this wise: There
was once a noted old wrecker called Kinsman:
he lived in my father's time; and when no
wreck was onward, he would get his wages by
raising stone in a quarry by the sea-shore. Well,
he was to work one day over yonder, half-way
down Tower-cliff, and all at once he heerd a
buzz above him in the air, and he looked up,
and there were two old ravens flying round and
round very near his head. They kept whirling
and whirling and coming so nigh, and they
seemed so knowing, that the old man thought
verily they were trying to speak, as they made
a strange croak; but, after some time, they
went away, and old Kinsman went on with his
work. Well, sir, by and by they both came
back again, flying above and round as before,
and then at last, Io and behold, the birds
dropped right down into the quarry two pieces
of wreck candle just down at the old man's
feet!" (Very often the wreckers pick up
Neapolitan wax-candles from vessels in the
Mediterranean trade that have been lost in the
Channel.) " So when Kinsman saw the candles,
he thought in his mind, ' There is surely wreck
coming in upon the beach;' so he packed his
tools together and left them just where he
stood, and went his way wrecking. He could
find no jetsam, however, though he searched far
and wide, and he used to say he verily believed
that the ravens must have had the candles at
hand in their holt, to be so ready with them as
they were. Next day he went back to quarry
to his work, and he always used to say it was as
true as a proverb: there the tools were all buried
deep out of sight, for the crag above had given
way and fallen down, and if he had tarried only
one hour longer he must have been crushed to
death! So you see, sir, what knowledge those
ravens must have had; how well they knew the
old man, and how fond he was of wreck; how
crafty they were to hit upon the only plan that
would ever have slocked him away; and the birds,
moreover, must have been kind creatures and
willing to save a poor fellow's life. There is
nothing on airth so knowing as a bird is, unless
it may be a snake. Did you ever hear, sir, how
I heal an adder's bite? You cut a piece of hazelwood,
sir, and you fasten a long bit and a short
one together into the form of a cross; then you
lay it softly upon the wound, and you say, thrice
blowing out the words aloud like one of the
commandiments,

         Underneath this hazelin mote,
         There's a Bragotty worm with a speckled throat,
          Nine double is he:
          Now from nine double to eight double
          And from eight double to seven double
          And from seven double to six double
          And from six double to five double
          And from five double to four double
          And from four double to three double
          And from three double to two double
          And from two double to one double
          And from one double to no double
          No double hath he!

"There, sir," said Uncle Tony, " if David
had known that charm he never would have
wrote the verse in the Psalms about the adder
that was so deaf that she would not hear the
voice of the charmer charm he never so wisely.
I never knew that charm fail in all my life!"
Tony added, after a pause. " Fail! of course,