emarkable occasion long forgotten.

The Cross was thus safely housed and stored away in the Round House, and
no one was the wiser. When morning dawned the astonishment of the early
Everton birds was extreme. From house to house--few in number, then--ran
the news that Everton Cross had disappeared during the storm of the
previous night. The inhabitants soon mustered on the spot, and deep and
long and loud were the lamentations uttered at its removal. Who did it?
When? How? At length a whisper was passed from mouth to mouth--at first
faintly and scarcely intelligible--until, gathering strength as it
travelled, it became at length boldly asserted that the Father of Lies
had taken it away in the turbulence of the elements. And so the news
spread through Liverpool, in the year 1820, that the Devil had run off
with the Cross at Everton. My old friend, who many a time chuckled over
his feat, and who told me of his doings, said that for many years he
feared to tell the truth about it, so indignant were many of the
inhabitants who knew that its disappearance could not have been
attributable to satanic agency. My friend used to say that he had hard
work to preserve his gravity when listening to the various versions that
were prevalent of the circumstance.

Opposite the Cross there were some very old houses of the same type,
character, and date as that known as Prince Rupert's cottage. The latter
was a low long building, constructed of stone, lath, and plaster, and
presented the appearance of an ordinary country cottage. Prince Rupert's
officers were quartered in the village houses. At the back of the
cottage, Rupert constructed his first battery. It was a square platform,
and was used as a garden, until cottage and all were swept away for the
new streets now to be found thereabouts. I can recollect the whole of
the land from Everton Village to Brunswick Road being pasture land, and
Mr. Plumpton's five houses in Everton Road, overlooking the fields,
commanded high rents when first erected. Low-hill at this time was a
rough, sandy, undulating lane with hedges on both sides. The only
dwellings in it were a large house near the West Derby-road, and two low
cottages opposite Phythian-street, still standing. The public-house at
the corner of Low-hill and the Prescot-road is of considerable antiquity,
there having been a tavern at this spot from almost all time, so to
speak. Hall-lane was then called Cheetham's-brow.