sparrow-holders to Black John, but these were
one day drawn by violence from his mouth by
an exasperated blacksmith, whose kitten had
been slain, and who had been persuaded by a
wretch who was himself the actual assassin,
that it was the jester who had guillotined the
poor creature with his formidable jaws. The
passage of the mouse was accomplished very
often, amid roars of rude applause, down and
up the gullet of the dwarf.

A tale is told of him, that one day, after he
had for some time amused the guests, and had
drank his full share of the ale, he fell, or seemed
to fall, asleep. On a sudden he started up
with a loud and terrified cry. Questioned as to
the cause of his alarm, he answered, "O, sir,"
to his master, "I was in a sog (sleep), and I
had such a dreadful dream. I thought I was
dead, and! went where the wicked people go!"

"Ha, John," said Arscott of Tetcott, in his
grim voice, wide awake for a jest or a tale, "then
tell us all about what you heard and saw."

"Well, master, nothing particular."

"Indeed, John!"

"No, sir; things was going on just as they
do upon airth—here in Tetcott Hall— the
gentlefolks nearest the fire."

His master's house was surrounded with all
kinds of tame animals and birds so bold and
confiding, from long safety and intercourse, that
the rooks would come down at a call, and pick
up food like pigeons, at the very feet of a man.
Among the familiar creatures of the Hall were
two enormous toads; these were especial
favourites with Mr. Arscott, who was a very
Chinese in his fondness for the bat and the
toad, and who used to feed them very often
with his own hands. One morning the family
were aroused by sounds near the porch of battle
and fight. A guest from a distant town who
had arrived the night before on a visit, was
discovered prone upon the grass, and over him stood
as conqueror Black John, belabouring him with
his staff. His story was, when rescued and set
upon his feet, that on going out to breathe the
morning air he had encountered and slain a fierce
and venomous reptile— a big bloated creature,
that came towards him with open mouth. It
turned out to be one of the enormous toads, an
old and especial pet of master and man, who had
heard a sound of feet, and came as usual to be
fed, and was ruthlessly put to death; not,
however, unavenged, for a wild man of the woods (so
the townsman averred) had rushed upon him
and knocked him down. When Mr. Arscott
had heard the story, he turned on his heel, and
never greeted his guest with one farewell word.
Black John sobbed and muttered vengeance in
his den for many a day for the death of " Old
Dawty"—the household name of the toad.

Black John's lair was a rude hut, which he
had wattled for a snug abode, close to the
kennel. He loved to retire to it, and sleep near
his chosen companions, the hounds. When they
were unkennelled, he accompanied and ran with
them afoot, and so sinewy and swift was his
stunted form, that he was very often in their
midst at the death. Then, with the brush of
the fox elaborately displayed as the crest of his
felt hat, John would make his appearance on
the following Sunday at church, where it was
displayed, and pompously hung up above his
accustomed seat, to his own great delight and
the envy of many among the congregation.
When the pack found the fox, and the
huntsman's ear was gladdened by their shrill and
sudden burst into full cry, Black John's shout
would be heard in the field, with his standing
jest, "There they go! there they go! like our
missus at home in one of her storms!" As he
grew older, and less equal to the exertion of his
strong and youthful days, John took to
wandering, gipsy fashion, about the country-side; and
he found food and welcome at every cottage and
farm-house. His usual couch was among the
reeds or fern of some sheltering brake or wood,
and he slept, as he himself used to express it,
"rolled up, as warm as a hedgeboar, round his
own nose." One day, in bitter snowy weather,
he was found wanting from his accustomed
haunts—"one morn they missed him on the
usual hill"— and after long search he was
discovered shrouded in snow, cold, stiffened, and
to all outward appearance dead. He was
carried home, and in due course was coffined and
borne towards the grave. But there, just as the
clergyman who read the service had reached the
solemn words which commit the body to the
ground, a loud thumping noise was heard within
the coffin. The bystanders rent open the lid
in hot haste, and up started Black John alive,
in amazement, and in furious wrath. He had
been in a long deliquium, or death-trance, from
cold, and had been restored to life by the
motion and warmth of his own funeral ride. As
he told the astonished mourners, "He heard
the words 'dust to dust,' and then," said he,
"I thought it was high time to bumpy." His
words passed into a proverb, and to this very
day, when Cornish men in these parts are placed
in some sudden extremity, and it becomes
necessary to take strong and immediate measures
for extrication, the saying is, "It is time to
bumpy, as Black John said." In his anger and
mental confusion, Black John ever after
attributed his attempted burial to the conspiracy
and ill will of the clergyman, whose words he
had interrupted by his sudden resurrection.
More than once the reverend gentleman was
suddenly assaulted in his walks by a stone
hurled at him from a hedge, followed by an
angry outcry, in a well-known voice, of "Ha!
old Dust-to-dust! here I be, alive and kicking!"

It may be easily believed that Black John
was a very refractory subject for clerical
interference and admonition. The result of frequent
clerical attempts to reform his habits, was a
rooted dislike on his part of the black coat and
white neckcloth in all its shades and
denominations. The visit of the first field-preacher to
the precincts of the Hall was signalised by an
exhibition of this feeling. John waylaid the
poor unsuspecting man, and offered to guide
him on his road by a short cut across the park,