Then rose the question, how were they to
get out? The sexton's short ladder was useless,
for the grave was at least twenty-feet
deep. Hicks settled the matter by calling
for "the ropes!"  "What ropes?"
"The coffin ropes." These were brought and
lowered to the men. With a loud hurrah
they were drawn up, and the clergyman was
told to "go on."

The good man, pale and terrified,
incoherently hurried through the service, closed
the book, and was gathering up his surplice
for a precipitate departure, when Hicks
grasped him by the collar and, with fearful
imprecations, demanded a gallon or two of
beer, "for," he said, "you do not get two of
'em in the hole every day." Then followed
an atrocious scene. A crowd had collected
in the churchyard, and several of the villagers
came forth to the rescue of their curate, who
narrowly escaped uninjured. A desperate fight,
during which one or two men were thrown
into the open grave, terminated the affair.

This revolting outrage was not allowed to
go unpunished. Hicks and a batch of his
men were arrested on the following Tuesday
while helplessly intoxicated—in which state
they had been ever since the funerals—and
were committed to the county jail.

Shortly after Christmas, when another
man was killed, his ganger proposed to
raffle the body. The idea took immensely,
and was actually carried out. Nearly three
hundred men joined in the scheme. The
raffle money, sixpence a member, was to go
towards a drinking bout at the funeral, the
whole expense of which was to be borne
jointly by those throwing the highest and
lowest numbers. The raffle took place, and
so did the revel; but the funeral, after
a fortnight's delay, was performed by the
parish.

In the month of February, eighteen
hundred and thirty-six, Frazer took a contract
to dig ballast at Tring; and, youth as I
was—although I was tall and masculine for
my years—sent me down there to have charge
of the job; on which there were about fifty
men employed.

The job was bravely started, and things
went on smoothly enough for the first ten
days, when, lo! it was reported that there was
a bogie in the ballast pit. These men who could
defy alike death and danger became panic
stricken. The idea that the pit was haunted
filled them with a mortal terror, of which the
infection heightened as it spread. At first
the current rumour was that picks, shovels,
and barrows were moved from their places
nightly by the bogie; then it came to be
credited that earth was dug, barrow-runs
broken up, tools spoiled, trucks shunted,
and even tipped by him in his nightly
visits. Finally, in the second week of
his pranks he was said to have appeared,
and then the men struck work in a body.
Reasoning with them was useless; the old
ganger, as spokesman for the rest, declared
as the result of his former experience that
"there was no tackling the old un," and to
a man they refused to re-enter the pit.

I had previously communicated with
Frazer on the subject; but, in this emergency,
I despatched a messenger specially for
him. He came down the same night, bringing
with him a band of chosen roughs from
Watford tunnel. These men had a ganger
with an unmentionable nickname, a fellow
who declared that his chaps were prepared
to work with the devil, and for the devil, so
long as they got their pay, and to set the
very devil himself to work should he appear
amongst them. Frazer expected much from
this gang; and, next morning, they commenced
work in earnest. But on the second day
they, too, became possessed with the same
superstitious terror as their predecessors;
and they also struck. Persuasives, promises,
and threats were alike unavailing; the men
would not "go agin the bogie," and the pit
was once again deserted.

Frazer, raved like a madman. He was
under a penalty to dig so much ballast per
week, and the very urgency of his case made
him desperate. I suggested to set on a gang
of farm labourers; of whom there were plenty
out of employ in the neighbourhood, and to
whom the high rate of wages would be an
inducement. He assented; and, in a day
or two, we were at work again swimmingly;
and continued so for a week, when the old
contagion showed itself, and another suspension
appeared inevitable. It came at last,
but was for some time averted by the allowance
of rations of tommy, in addition to
wages, and by seeing that every man was
half drunk before he went to work. When,
at last, these men also struck, I really think
their striking was attributable more to the
intimidation practised by the old hands—
many of whom were lurking about—towards
these knobsticks, than from the influence of
any other terror.

But the moral effect of this last strike upon
Frazer was wondrous. Never since then
have I seen a bold daring man so thoroughly
beaten. He became melancholy, and told me
piteously that he hadn't got the heart to
swear. My advice was to throw up the
contract; but of this he would not hear; he
would sooner cut his throat, he said. Before
doing this, however, I suggested that he
ought to send for Hatley and consult with
him. He sneered at this, but eventually
instructed me to send for him. George came,
heard the history of the case; and, like a
thorough general—as he has ever since proved
himself—proposed to work the pit with three
shifts of men working eight hours each during
the whole twenty-four. "That," said he, "will
settle the bogie, for he'll never have a minute
to himself for HIS work."

The soundness of this idea, it was impossible
to gainsay. George returned to North-