no meaning in what he said—that if they took notice of him, they might do nothing else—that, for her part, what he said went in at one ear and out at the other-it was a way he had, and words broke no bones-that nobody who knew him believed him, and, as to strangers, what did it matter? and this was the greatest comfort after all." So he went on battering, defacing, and taking away character; which she endeavoured to repair and replace, by these and such like comfortable assertions.

As to abusing him, that had been tried, and failed; threats succeeded no better, and he had thrice wriggled out of the hands of the law, uninjured either in person or purse. He was a man intended by Nature to be constantly disguised, and placed at the head of a sharp detective force—that is, if it is not unnatural to place one man over another as a constant spy, and to watch his every action, as is the case in an over-good government. But alas! he was not destined to head these hidden honours; for which he might have been canonised as the first Saint Sly on record.

What was there he did not know? If he was not certain as to what persons had been, he gave to them

"A local habitation and a name;"

if he knew not where they were going, he set down in his own mind where they would go; if he doubted what they were doing, he imagined what they would, ought, or might do; and, as to the future, why there could not be much harm in prophesying and guessing at that:-a man might either shoot somebody and die on the gallows, or obtain the star and garter; he might be imprisoned for picking a pocket, or be by chance promoted to the peerage. Saint Saxby only said what he thought; and all Skellingthorpe

could not tell what the future might produce. If he had not "picked a hole in every man's coat" in the parish, he had tried; so it was no fault of his. He had followed a load of corn, in the night, for a mile or two-been horsewhipped by the waggoner, who was conveying it to the neighbouring market. and had slept amid the smartings he merited :-followed some butcher, a night or two after, to see which road he went with his sheep-had been left to scramble out of the deep ditch as he best could:-and, nothing daunted, dodged some honest gardener with his load, for which he was rewarded with the loss of his coat-skirts, and had a narrow escape from being worried by the dog. And when his neighbours laughed at him for his pains, he consoled himself with the thought that they were ungrateful, and declared that he had no other motive than to prevent their being robbed.

As for his own garden, he could keep nothing in it— they even stole the fence, when there was no more to steal: they thought it but fair, that he who robbed so many of their characters, should be plundered in return; and as he had no character worth taking away, they seized whatever they could lay their hands upon, and often destroyed it merely for the love of the mischief. If they were found out, "they had no meaning in it;" and so they turned the tables upon Mrs. Saxby and the Saint, "blessing their hearts!" and doing the same again. But this was poor retaliation if he set a man-trap, it was sure to be carried off; and when he sat up all night in his summer-house to watch his early peas, they contrived to steal his gun, which he reared ready charged beside him, although he swore, by all the saints his father had ever read about, that "he never slept a wink." They stole his cucumbers, and placed redherrings under the frames; then gave it out that he had

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grown them. His gooseberry-trees they carried away whole; and if every one in the village was not a thief, he could find in each garden a bush that resembled his own, the next day; and, when disposed to be very ironical, he would say, Of course they came there by themselves; had he been up, he no doubt should have seen them run away!" Oh! his sarcasms were very bitter! so much so, that the whole village rung with laughter; for no one, saving the parson, was sorry for him. There were those who thought that the Saint, as he was always called, had no dislike to be plundered now and then, as it furnished him with a subject to complain about, giving him a right to suspect everybody; and if he was too hard upon names and persons, and they did sometimes threaten to punish him, why he never could be far wrong, when he declared, if it was not them, it must be somebody else. As sure as his garden was robbed over night, so certain was he of meeting a large company in the parlour of the Blue Lion: joiner, blacksmith, wheelwright, butcher, tailor, and shoemaker, with a good sprinkling of farmers, were ever ready to sympathise with the Saint; for, like Falstaff, he was sure to make "eleven men in buckram out of the two he started with. Nay, sometimes his imagination went so far as to recount how he struggled with them-which way they run. once have they before his face confessed robbers, and convinced him by pulling out the whole produce of the plunder from a single pocket; for they well knew that no magistrate in the county would grant him a summons. He lied and slandered, and they stole and destroyed, consoling him afterwards, by telling him, that there" was six in one, and half a dozen in the other."

And more than themselves the

The villagers soon found that they might as well try to

P

seize upon a shadow, as to get any substantial hold upon Saint Saxby for what he said; so they began by playing off tricks upon him. They persuaded him to buy a new patent spring man-trap, telling him that those he had tried before were of no use. He took their advice,-purchased one; had it paraded round the village, on the shoulders of two men, while the bellman went before them with a written paper, according to ancient custom; and after summoning them, by ringing his bell, read aloud when and where it would be set, and cautioning all evil-doers to be aware of trespassing on Saint Saxby's garden. A formidable instrument was that man-trap, as it was borne about, ready set, with its wide, expanded jaws of jagged teeth, ten times longer, and in every way as sharp, as the teeth in a joiner's saw; and every now and then it was put on the ground, and on the floor of the trap was planted the end of a stout pole, so placed as a man might be supposed to tread upon it when it lay concealed; when off it went with a whiz and a click, as if a Titan was using a pair of proportionable snuffers; and there stood the pole, beaten deep in at the sides by these formidable steel tusks, making the beholders shudder, while they fancied for a moment that they had one leg locked up in the same secure and unenviable situation. That very night two or three of the Saint's old cronies came from the Blue Lion parlour, to assist him in setting it, and the old backbiter chuckled again with delight, as he thought that he should at last catch a real thief and he did catch one long before the sun rose. He even made Mrs. Saxby get up in the night to have a look at the veritable thief which he had caught. There could be no mistake about the matter this time; there stood the man with his hat on, and his arm resting on the choice apple tree for sup

port, beneath which the man-trap had been placed. And now arose the question, what should he do with him? Mrs. Saxby pleaded for his liberation at once; but this, he said, would be a dangerous experiment as he fancied he saw something like a pistol in the captured man's hand. After a long consultation, it was at last decided that he should steal out gently, and call up the village constable to his assistance. Now, he had so often called up the constable to no purpose, that, like the boy with the wolf, in the fable, who, when he really did require help, called aloud for it in vain; so did the worthy functionary slam down the window, bidding him, in no very measured tones, "go to the devil!" and telling him that if he had caught the man, he had already had punishment enough, and the best thing that he could do was to let him off, and make room for a new comer, while, for his part, he should not budge a step, for everybody knew he was such a liar there was no believing him. The Saint soon found that he could obtain no help there; so he proceeded to knock up the joiner and the butcher, and they, nothing loth, accompanied him. "Be careful," said the Saint, when they had reached the gardengate, "it's old Dicky Lion, from Crowgarth. I know him well-a desperate fellow-never without fire-arms-he's paid me many a visit before to-night. You and I had better go up first gently, butcher, and each seize an arm a-piece : You see his back is towards us, and there's no fear of his running away."

"Not a bit," answered the joiner, nudging the butcher with his elbow as he spoke. "I'll bet a guinea he hasn't a word to say for himself. We'll have him shown up and down the village street to-morrow. Shall we, Saint?"

"That we will," replied Saint Saxby, eagerly, " and the