parish,
but he never did regular work except at hay and harvest times, or when
he was cutting copsewood. Then old Pucklechurch's brother, Master
Pucklechurch of Downhill, who always managed the copse cutting, used to
hire him, and they and another man lived in a kind of wigwam made of
chips, and cut down the seven years' growth of underwood, dividing it
into pea-sticks from the tops, and splitting the thicker parts to be
woven into hurdles, or made into hoops for barrels. They had a little
fire, but their wives brought them their food, and little Hoglah, now
quite well only with a scarred neck, delighted to toddle about among the
chips, and cry out, "Pitty! pitty!" at the primroses.

Copse cutting over, Joe Todd haunted fairs and drove cattle home, or did
anything he could pick up. He lived in a mud hovel which he and Tirzah
had built for themselves on the border land, and where they kept a tall,
thin, smooth-haired dog, with a grey coat, a white waistcoat, a long
nose and tail, and blue eyes, which gave him a peculiarly sinister
expression of countenance, and he had a habit of leaping up and planting
his fore feet on the gate, growling, so that Dora and Sophy were very
much afraid of him, and no one except Mr Harford had ever attempted to
effect an entrance into the cottage. It was pretty well understood that
Joe Todd and his lurcher carried on a business as poachers, and Tirzah
going about with clothes'-pegs, rush baskets, birch brooms, and in their
season with blackberries, whortleberries, or plovers' eggs, was able to
dispose of their game to the poulterers at Minsterham, with whom she had
an understanding. Her smiling black eyes, white teeth, and merry looks,
caused a great deal of business to be done through her, and servants
were not unwilling to carry in her stories about rabbits knocked down
unawares by a stick, and pheasants or partridges killed by chance in
reaping. Indeed, she had a little trade in dripping and other scraps
with sundry of these servants, which rendered them the more disposed to
receive her.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

PRIZES.

"Miss Jenny and Polly
Had each a new dolly,
With rosy red cheeks and blue eyes,
Dressed in ribbons and gauze;
And they quarrelled because
The dolls were not both of a size."
_The Daisy_.

Nobody offered a hundred golden guineas to bring Elizabeth and Anne
Morris to school, nevertheless they appeared there at the end of the
second week. They we