ld woman
of this weakness, he dressed himself as well as he could to represent the
sable form of his satanic majesty. Alas! instead of being surprised, the
old lady was too far-gone for that, and listened with tipsy gravity to
the distinguished visitor's discourse. In her case it was true, as Burns
wrote:

'Wi' tipenny we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae we'll face the deevil.'

One of his tricks nearly led to unpleasant consequences. Whilst out
shooting one day, near Yarmouth, he killed an owl--a bird familiarly
known in Yarmouth by the sobriquet of 'Brother Billy.' Having arrived at
home, he went up into his mother's room, with the bird concealed behind
his coat, and, assuming a countenance full of fear and sorrow, exclaimed,
'Mother, mother, I've shot my brother Billy!' but the alarm and distress
instantly depicted on the distracted countenance of his parent induced
him as quickly as possible to pull the owl from under his coat. This at
once exposed the truth and allayed the apprehensions of his mother's
mind, but the effects of the shock it caused did not so immediately pass
away. Dr. Cooper determined to punish his son, and he therefore confined
him, according to his usual mode of correction, in his own house. Astley
was, however, but little disposed to remain passive in his imprisonment,
and in the wantonness of his ever-active disposition amused himself by
climbing up the chimney, and having at length reached the summit,
endeavoured, by imitating the well-known tone of the chimney-sweeper, and
calling out as lustily as he could, 'Sweep, sweep!' to attract the
attention of the people below. Even on his father the incorrigible lad
seems on more than one occasion to have tried his little game. One day,
while the worthy Doctor was marrying a couple in the church, Master
Astley concealed himself in a turret close by the altar, and, imitating
his father's voice, repeated in a subdued tone the words of the
marriage-service as the ceremony proceeded, to the consternation of his
father, who said that he had never observed an echo in that place before.
Once or twice the lad's life was in peril, as when his foot slipped on
the top of the church, and he was unpleasantly suspended for some time
between the rafters of the ceiling and the floor of the chancel. On
another occasion he had a narrow escape from drowning. It seems that on
the Yare are little boats out together very slightly, for the purpose of
carryi