_Thos._ “I knows your meanings good, and thank ’ee kindly, Sir, tho’ I be no schollard. Well, Timothy Gibbons, my great grandvather, you see, Sir, foller’d blacksmithing at Lambourn, till he took to highway robbin’, but I can’t give ’ee no account o’ when or wher.’ Arter he’d been out, may be dree or vour year, he and two companions cum to Baydon; and whilst hiding theirselves and baiting their hosses in a barn, the constables got ropes round the barn-yard and lined ’em in. Then all dree drawed cuts[26] who was to go out fust and face the constables. It fell to Tim’s two companions to go fust, but their hearts failed ’em, and they wouldn’t go. So Tim cried out as ‘he’d shew ’em what a Englishman could do,’ and mounted his hos and drawed his cutlash, and cut their lines a-two, and galloped off clean away; but I understood as t’other two was took. Arter that, may be a year or two, he cum down to a pastime on White Hos Hill, and won the prize at backswording; and when he took his money, fearing lest he should be knowed, he jumped on his hos under the stage, and galloped right off, and I don’t know as he ever cum again to these parts. Then I’ve understood as things throve wi’ ’un, as ’um will at times, Sir, wi’ thay sort o’ chaps, and he and his companions built the Inn called ‘the Magpies,’ on Hounslow Heath; but I dwon’t know as ever he kep’ the house hisself, except it med ha’ been for a short while. Howsomever, at last he was took drinking at a public-house, someweres up Hounslow way, wi’ a companion who played a cross wi’ ’un, and I b’live ’a was hanged at Newgate. But I never understood as he killed any body, Sir, and a’d used to gie some o’ the money as he took to the poor, if he knowed they was in want.”
_Squire._ “Thank’ee, Thomas. What a pity he didn’t go soldiering; he might have made a fine fellow then!”
_Thos._ “Well, Sir, so t’wur, I thinks. Our fam’ly be given to that sort o’ thing. I wur a good hand at elbow and collar wrastling myself, afore I got married; but then I gied up all that, and ha’ stuck to work ever sence.”
_Squire._ “Well, Thomas, you’ve given me the story I wanted to hear, so it’s fair I should give you a Sunday dinner.”
_Thos._ “Lord love ’ee, Sir, I never meant nothin’ o’ that sort; our fam’ly”--