the magistrates had been threatened by the mob, had ridden in with a
big stick in his hand, and held the Petty Sessions[22] by himself. How
his great uncle, the rector, had encountered and laid the last ghost,
who had frightened the old women, male and female, of the parish, out
of their senses, and who turned out to be the blacksmith's apprentice,
disguised in drink and a white sheet. It was Benjy too who saddled
Tom's first pony, and instructed him in the mysteries of horsemanship,
teaching him to throw his weight back and keep his hand low; and who
stood chuckling outside the door of the girls' school when Tom rode
his little Shetland into the cottage and round the table, where the
old dame and her pupils were seated at their work.

[19] #Stickleback#: a small fish.

[20] #Pop-joying#: nibbling by fish.

[21] #Float#: a cork or bit of wood attached to a fish-line.

[22] #Petty sessions#: a criminal court held by a justice of
the peace.

Benjy himself was come of a family distinguished in the Vale for their
prowess in all athletic games. Some half-dozen of his brothers and
kinsmen had gone to the wars, of whom only one had survived to come
home, with a small pension, and three bullets in different parts of
his body; he had shared Benjy's cottage till his death, and had left
him his old dragoon's[23] sword and pistol, which hung over the
mantle-piece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-sticks, with which
Benjy himself had won renown long ago as an old gamester,[24] against
the picked men of Wiltshire, and Somersetshire,[25] in many a good
bout at the revels and pastimes of the country-side. For he had been a
famous back-sword man in his young days, and a good wrestler at elbow
and collar.

OUR VEAST.

Back-swording and wrestling were the most serious holiday pursuits of
the Vale,--those by which men attained fame,--and each village had its
champion. I suppose that, on the whole, people were less worked then,
than they are now; at any rate, they seemed to have more time and
energy for the old pastimes. The great times for back-swording came
round once a year, in each village at the feast. The Vale "veasts"
were not the common statute feasts[26], but much more ancient
business. They are literally, so far as one can ascertain, feasts of
the dedication, _i.e._, they were first established in the church-yard
on the day on which the village church was opened for public worship,
which was on th