nd while for their safeguard they run thus away,
The jolly bold Cripple did hold the rest play,
And with his pikestaff he wounded them so,
As they were unable to run or to go.

'With fighting the Lord Courtney was driven out of breath,
And most of his servants were wounded to death,
Then came other horsemen riding so fast,
The Cripple was forced to flye at the last.

'And over a river that ran there beside,
Which was very deep and eighteen foot wide,
With his long staff and his stilts leaped he,
And shifted himself in an old hollow tree.

'Then through the country was hue and cry made,
To have these bold thieves apprehended and staid;
The Cripple he creep on his hands and his knees,
And on the hieway great posting he sees.

'And as they came riding, he begging doth say,
"O give me one penny, good masters, I pray;"
And thus on to Exeter creeps he along,
No man suspecting that he had done wrong.

'Anon the Lord Courtney he spies in the street,
He comes unto him and he kisses his feet,
Saying, "God save your honour and keep you from ill,
And from the hands of your enemies still!"

'"Amen!" quoth Lord Courtney, and therewith flung downe
Unto the poor Cripple an English crowne;
Away went the Cripple, and thus did he thinke,
"Five hundred pound more would make me to drinke."

'In vain that hue and cry it was made,
They found none of them, though the country was laid;
But this grieved the Cripple both night and by day,
That he so unluckily mist of his prey.

'Nine hundred pound this Cripple had got,
By begging and thieving--so good was his lot--
"A thousand pound he would make it," he said,
"And then he would quite give over his trade."

'But as he (thus) strived his mind to fulfill.
In following his actions so lewd and so ill,
At last he was taken, the law to suffice,
Condemned and hanged at Exeter 'size.

'Which made all men greatly amazed to see,
That such an impotent person as he
Should venture himself in such actions as they,
To rob in such sort upon the hye-way.'

On a hill about two miles east of Totnes stand the ruins of Berry
Pomeroy, at a little distance almost hidden in the thick woods around
them. Vistas of green leaves without end open from the road to the
castle, long lines of beeches and oaks stretching out of sight and
b