ye, baby Bunting; toss him up, and
let me see if my wrist be steady."

The cruelty of this man is a thing it makes me sick to speak of; enough
that when the poor baby fell (without attempt at cry or scream, thinking
it part of his usual play, when they tossed him up, to come down again),
the maid in the oven of the back-kitchen, not being any door between,
heard them say as follows,--

"If any man asketh who killed thee,
Say 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy.'*

* Always pronounced "Badgery."

Now I think that when we heard this story, and poor Kit Badcock came all
around, in a sort of half-crazy manner, not looking up at any one,
but dropping his eyes, and asking whether we thought he had been
well-treated, and seeming void of regard for life, if this were all the
style of it; then having known him a lusty man, and a fine singer in an
ale-house, and much inclined to lay down the law, as show a high hand
about women, I really think that it moved us more than if he had gone
about ranting, and raving, and vowing revenge upon every one.

CHAPTER LXX

COMPELLED TO VOLUNTEER

[Illustration: 654.jpg Illustrated Capital]

There had been some trouble in our own home during the previous autumn,
while yet I was in London. For certain noted fugitives from the army
of King Monmouth (which he himself had deserted, in a low and currish
manner), having failed to obtain free shipment from the coast near
Watersmouth, had returned into the wilds of Exmoor, trusting to
lurk, and be comforted among the common people. Neither were they
disappointed, for a certain length of time; nor in the end was their
disappointment caused by fault on our part. Major Wade was one of them;
an active and well-meaning man; but prone to fail in courage, upon
lasting trial; although in a moment ready. Squire John Whichehalse (not
the baron) and Parson Powell* caught him (two or three months before my
return) in Farley farmhouse, near Brendon. He had been up at our house
several times; and Lizzie thought a great deal of him. And well I know
that if at that time I had been in the neighbourhood, he should not have
been taken so easily.

* Not our parson Bowden, nor any more a friend of his. Our
Parson Bowden never had naught whatever to do with it; and
never smoked a pipe with Parson Powell after it.--J.R.

John Birch, the farmer who had sheltered him, was so fearful of
punishment, that he hanged himself, in a few