rive him from his cottage home to earn a living for his infant children.

William was a little dubious as to his reception, and in order to temper
the storm to the "ambling lamb," he earnestly requested me to accompany him
home, as a buffer to his contemplated reception, believing that Anne would
mellow her words and actions in the presence of an old friend.

I respectfully declined his pressing invitation and twitted him on being
afraid of a woman, when he plaintively exclaimed:

_Anne Hath-a-way that gives me pain,
She scolds both day and night;
Her tongue goes pattering like the rain
And speeds my outward flight;
I'll soon be gone to London town
And leave her house and land
Where I will gain some great renown
That she may understand._

I met William the next morning on his way to the Crown Tavern in search of
a "Martini Cocktail," a new drink that an Indian from America had invented
for Admiral Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.

William bore the appearance of a man who had slept by a smoky chimney, or
encountered the butt end of a threshing flail. He seemed sombre and
muttered to himself:

_"When sorrows come they come not single
But in battalions!"_

I joined him in liquidation at the tavern, for, to tell the truth, my
throat felt like the rough edge of a buffalo robe, and my nerves trembled
like aspen leaves in July.

When our usual village sports filed around the table, and glee and song
once more prevailed, William began to soften in his statuesque attitude,
and laughingly proposed that we "go a poaching" on the imprisoned animals
and birds that Squire Lucy corraled for his special delectation, to the
detriment of honest apprentices and pure-minded yeomanry.

His proposition was agreed to unanimously, and just as the sun tipped the
treetops of the Charlecote domain, we had scared up a couple of fat deer,
and sent our arrows through their trembling anatomy, and the number of
hares, grouse and pigeons we slaughtered that evening kept the landlord of
the Crown Tavern busy for two days to dish up to his jolly revelers.

In this escapade we only imitated the aristocratic students of Oxford
College, who frequently made inroads into lordly domains and took some of
the treasures that God and Nature intended for all men, instead of being
hatched, bred and watched by impudent and cruel gamekeepers, employed by
tyrannical landlords, in defiance of the natural rights