them, by ringing his bell, read aloud when and where it would be set, and cautioning all evil-doers to be aware of trespassing on Saint Saxby's garden. A formidable instrument was that man-trap, as it was borne about, ready set, with its wide, expanded jaws of jagged teeth, ten times longer, and in every way as sharp, as the teeth in a joiner's saw; and every now and then it was put on the ground, and on the floor of the trap was planted the end of a stout pole, so placed as a man might be supposed to tread upon it when it lay concealed; when off it went with a whiz and a click, as if a Titan was using a pair of proportionable snuffers; and there stood the pole, beaten deep in at the sides by these formidable steel tusks, making the beholders shudder, while they fancied for a moment that they had one leg locked up in the same secure and unenviable situation. That very night two or three of the Saint's old cronies came from the Blue Lion parlour, to assist him in setting it, and the old backbiter chuckled again with delight, as he thought that he should at last catch a real thief-and he did catch one long before the sun rose. He even made Mrs. Saxby get up in the night to have a look at the veritable thief which he had caught. There could be no mistake about the matter this time; there stood the man with his hat on, and his arm resting on the choice apple tree for support, beneath which the man-trap had been placed. And now arose the question, what should he do with him? Mrs. Saxby pleaded for his liberation at once; but this, he said, would be a dangerous experiment, as he fancied he saw something like a pistol in the captured man's hand. After a long consultation, it was at last decided that he should steal out gently, and call up the village constable to his assistance. Now, he had so often called up the constable to no purpose, that, like the boy with the wolf, in the fable, who, when he really did require help, called

aloud for it in vain; so did the worthy functionary slam down the window, bidding him, in no very measured tones, "go to the devil!" and telling him that if he had caught the man, he had already had punishment enough, and the best thing that he could do was to let him off, and make room for a new-comer, while, for his part, he should not budge a step, for everybody knew he was such a liar there was no believing him. The Saint soon found that he could obtain no help there; so he proceeded to knock up the joiner and the butcher, and they, nothing loth, accompanied him. "Be careful," said the Saint, when they had reached the garden gate, "It's old Dicky Lion, from Crowgarth. I know him well-a desperate fellow-never without firearms-he's paid me many a visit before to-night. You and I had better go up first gently, butcher, and each seize an arm apiece. You see his back is towards us, and there's no fear of his running away."

"Not a bit," answered the joiner, nudging the butcher with his elbow as he spoke. "I'll bet a guinea he hasn't a word to say for himself. We'll have him shown up and down the village street to-morrow. Shall we, Saint ?" "That we will," replied Saint Saxby, eagerly, "and the bellman shall go before him, if his leg is well enough to walk; they'll believe I'm robbed when they see the real thief: won't they?"

"They will, indeed," rejoined the butcher; "we shall have a merry day to-morrow. Hist! let us move on gently."

And gently enough they did move; more like thieves than capturers; when the Saint, making a grab at the prisoner's arm, exclaimed, "We have you at last, and no mistake!"

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'Why, how the dickens is this?" roared out the butcher, bursting with laughter; "its only Farmer Fletcher's scare-crow, after all! Well, this is something

to talk about-to think of a scare-crow, which is only made of straw and rags, with an old coat and hat on, leaving a corn-field, and coming to rob a garden! Hang it, neighbour Saxby! they'll set thee down for a greater liar than ever: and Farmer Fletcher, who has no love for thee, will be having thee taken up for a thief, for stealing his scare-crow."

The joiner could not speak for laughing; he placed his hand on his side; he was compelled to lean on the appletree for support; there was no boundary to his merriment; he fairly crowed again, and was only stopped by a violent fit of coughing. As for the Saint, he swore beautifully; there was scarcely a curse in the calendar that his canonised predecessors had invented, which he did not "rap out;" and such was the comfort administered to him by the butcher and the joiner, that he threatened to shoot them if they did not make off. He even went so far as to declare that he believed they and nobody else had placed the scare-crow in the man-trap, that they might make a fool of him. To which the butcher retorted, that he was one already made; and so they went on abusing one another until each party was out of hearing, the joiner and his friend, however, bearing off the scare-crow between them.

Hogarth might have sketched what is beyond the power of our pen to describe, for never was there a merrier day in the village of Skellingthorpe than that on which the Saint's prisoner was paraded about. Every rustic wag had his joke, and it would fill pages to record all the good things they said. As for the Saint, he was so enraged that he run up a high brick wall beside his garden, and surmounted it with a battlement of broken glass bottles; and in time he reaped a rich crop of dead cats and dogs, rags, old shoes, broken pots, stones, bricks, and every kind of rubbish which it was possible to throw over the wall into his garden. He would have emigrated to America, but he was afraid of

sea-sickness, so he contented himself by abusing people worse than ever.

Many a merry tale was told of the struggles for supremacy which took place between Saint Saxby and his wife, when they were first married, and how he at last contrived to carry the day. If, thought Mrs. Saxby-who, taking her altogether, was a good, worthy woman-if, thought she, "a soft answer turneth away wrath," not to reply at all will be sure to put a speedier end to his anger; so, like a peaceful person, she adopted the "silent system," and practice soon enabled her to keep it up occasionally for a day or two. This did not suit Saint Saxby, but what could he do? "You may drag a horse to the water," said he, "but all the abuse in the world will not make him drink unless he feels disposed. And so it is with my wife. I may argue from sunrise to sunset, and yet obtain no answer; not that she always keeps silent during these 'tantrums,' for sometimes when I am angry she begins to sing, then she talks to the bird or the cat; and I can tell you, neighbour, her songs have at times a good deal of point in them, and are very provoking; for instance, now, what can be more aggravating than such lines as these?—

There was an old man in a rage,

Who went storming about the house,
Till you wished him shut up in a cage,
Or in a dark hole, like a mouse.

He storms and he swears,

Because nobody cares,

Nobody cares!'

And she will over with the last two lines for half-a-dozen times together," continued he. But for these two days she has never spoken a word to me, either good or bad."

"I'll tell thee how to cure her, if thou'lt stan' a pot o' yeal," said the landlord of the Blue Lion.

"I'll pay for half a gallon, if I succeed," answered Saint Saxby, eagerly,

He whispered something in the Saint's ear, which caused the old slanderer to chuckle again, as he exclaimed, "I'll set about it at once; there could not be a better day for it, -it's Saturday, and all will be as clean as a new pin."

In little more than half an hour Saint Saxby returned, shouting out," Bring in the ale! I've found her tongue! I've found her tongue!"

"Where? where?" eagerly inquired half-a-dozen voices all together.

"She

"In the coal cupboard," answered the Saint. had just finished cleaning the house, and was about to sit down to her needlework, when I went to the cupboard, as if to look for something, and pretending not to find it, I took up the shovel, and began to turn out the coals into the middle of the clean floor. "What are you looking for, Saint," said she. "I've found it," answered I; "I was looking for your tongue;-and I did find it to some purpose," continued Saint Saxby; "and glad enough was I to get out of the way, and lose the sound of it again, for it went like a water-mill."

After that day the Saint tried many a time to stop Mrs. Saxby's tongue, but he never succeeded; and when the landlord of the Blue Lion was consulted, he shook his head, and said, "Nay, nay, that's past my curing. I told thee how to set her a-going, but she's not so soon stopped as a clock, for she'll 'tick' on in spite of thee."

But the most important event in Saint Saxby's life was witnessing with his own eyes the perpetration of a dreadful murder. It was late on a starlight winter's night when he saw two men turn down a narrow, solitary lane, the end of which came out at some distance into the open high road. The Saint knew, by their very manner, that they medi