Lorna has great stores of money, though we never draw it out, except for

some poor neighbor; unless I find her a sumptuous dress, out of her own

perquisites. And this she always looks upon as a wondrous gift from me;

and kisses me much when she puts it on, and walks like the noble woman

she is. And yet I may never behold it again; for she gets back to her

simple clothes, and I love her the better in them. I believe that she

gives half the grandeur away, and keeps the other half for the children.

As for poor Tom Faggus, every one knows his bitter adventures, when his

pardon was recalled, because of his journey to Sedgemoor. Not a child

in the country, I doubt, but knows far more than I do of Tom's most

desperate doings. The law had ruined him once, he said; and then he had

been too much for the law: and now that a quiet life was his object,

here the base thing came after him. And such was his dread of this

evil spirit, that being caught upon Barnstaple Bridge, with soldiers

at either end of it (yet doubtful about approaching him), he set his

strawberry mare, sweet Winnie, at the left-hand parapet, with a whisper

into her dove-coloured ear. Without a moment's doubt she leaped it, into

the foaming tide, and swam, and landed according to orders. Also his

flight from a public-house (where a trap was set for him, but Winnie

came and broke down the door, and put two men under, and trod on them,)

is as well known as any ballad. It was reported for awhile that poor Tom

had been caught at last, by means of his fondness for liquor, and was

hanged before Taunton Jail; but luckily we knew better. With a good

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