"I was five-and-twenty turned when I met
my missis at Tyemouth one summer; she
was a neighbour's daughter; but he being a
widower, she had lived away with an aunt, in
Northumberland! We soon settled to be
married in the autumn, but my mother dying
put it off till the winter. Well, this death
and my being the only son, brought it about
that, instead of my father stocking a farm for
me, I took my wife to live with him, and took
a share of his farm, and I often think that,
under Providence, this was the road that led
me to Australia.

"Having a fancy that way, I took special
charge of the horned stock; to please my
missis I had given up hunting, and so set to
work to follow Mr. Collings's example, and try
what could be made of the short-horns; partly,
perhaps, because our neighbours laughed at
the notion, and I always like to think for
myself. My head herd was a Yorkshireman,
by the name of Tom Birkenshaw; he had
been our head carter, but having broken his
ankle bone, which set stiff lame, and so bad
for travelling, he was made bullherd.

"Tom was, indeed, I may say he is, for he
don't live far off, although he's getting old
now, as knowing a fellow about cattle or
horses as ever walked in shoe-leather. You'll
mind a little man in a blue night-cap, with a
crutch-handled stick. That was Birkenshaw.
He had but two faults: he was apt to get a
drop too much beer now and then, and he
couldn't leave the game alone. There were
preserves all round us, and if he'd been
content with what was found on our farm it
would not have mattered so much; but that
did not suit him—he must be poaching in
the very midst of the preserves. Then he
had two dogs that could do anything but
speak, as regular poachers and as fond of it
as Tom himself was.

"Well, father warned him, and I warned
and threatened, but it was no use. Go into
his cottage when you would between August,
when the leverets are so tender, and February,
you were sure to smell game, though not a
bit of fur or feather was to be seen; he used
to say to me, 'Bless your heart, Master
Gabriel, it's not the beasties I care for; it's
going after them.' His lame leg rather interfered
with his sport; for before that accident,
there was not a man in the county could get
nigh him if he got a fair start. Well, as I
told him, to make a long story short, he was
caught, one moonlight night, by the earl's
gamekeeper, when he and his brindled dog
Patch were enjoying themselves in a twelve-
acre meadow of the Earl of D——'s; Patch
driving the hares into the gins, and Birkenshaw
taking them out and resetting them.
The gamekeeper shot the dog from behind a
hedge where he had been lying waiting, and
chased my man, overtook him, and knocked
him down. John jumped up, his blood
boiling at the loss of Patch, caught the
keeper a crack with a short cudgel, that laid
him flat, took to his heels, and ran home and
told no one.

"Two hours afterwards a party of watchers
found the keeper lying where John had
stretched him, groaning, bloody, and insensible.
The next day he recovered his senses,
and by midnight poor John was in Durham
Castle, heavily ironed. He was tried at the
next assizes, and sentenced to be transported
for life. It was only by very strong interest
that he escaped being hanged. Birkenshaw
told the judge he would sooner be hanged, and
many of his friends agreed that hanging could
not be worse—so blind are we poor mortals
to what is best for us. We promised to take
care of his wife and two little boys. John
was taken away ironed, on the top of the
coach for London. He passed through the
village and our farm, and there was not a dry
eye. The miners wanted to rescue him, but we
persuaded them it would do no good. Years
passed before we ever heard whether he was
dead or alive. His poor wife soon pined away
and died, and the two little boys came to
us. You'd scarcely believe it; but, 'fore their
father had been gone six months, I caught
them and my eldest son Ralph in the
hayloft making gins for hares. You may be sure
I threshed them all well.

"Just before the war ended, when my two
eldest were growing up, nice boys, big enough
to ride to market with me, my father and I
agreed to take another large arable farm, that
had been very badly done by the last tenant,
on a long lease; we thought we had a good
bargain, and that it would be ready by the
time my son Ralph was old enough to take to it;
for although my father was getting on in
years, he was as hale and as hearty as many a
man of fifty. But the very week after signing
the lease, as the old man was returning from
Durham on his mare, that had carried him
without shying or stumbling for nigh fourteen
years, she slipped up in coming along a bridle-
road and threw him against a stone wall,
breaking his collar bone and cutting his head
open; there he lay, through a frosty night, for
many hours before he was found; he lingered
several weeks, but never rallied. Long as we
had lived together; I seemed to have lost him
just when I needed him most.

"Before the year was out peace was signed,
and down went prices. I had to pay off my
sisters' fortunes, fixed by will when wheat was
at 120s. a quarter. Then came a heavy bond
to pay as security, that my father had given for
a relation, who had taken contracts and made
great sums through the war, but ended by a
great mistake. All my troubles came at once;
a coalpit we had a heavy stake in, and
which I took from my sisters, because they
had married far away, burst out with fire-
damp, was filled with water, and then could
not be cleared. So one way or another, what
with the heavy sums needed for stocking and
putting in heart the new farm, my ready
money all melted away. Then came, after a