enmity, she would choose a time for being
baptized when he was from home. A time was therefore chosen when he
was to be absent at a fair in Exeter. The farmer went to the fair;
but having learned on Thursday that his wife was to be baptized at
eleven o'clock the next morning, in haste to return he rose early on
Friday morning, to put a stop to the proceeding. After he had rode
several miles, he said to himself, "No, I will not go; let her do
what she pleases, I will not care about her at all:" and he
therefore rode back again towards Exeter. But after awhile he altered
his mind again and said to himself, "Nay, I will go, she shall not
have her way;" and he rode again towards Ashburton. He pursued his
way, and then changed his mind a third time, and turned towards
Exeter; but not long after this, a fourth time he had different
thoughts, and determined to ride borne. Now, however, he remembered,
that, on account of his having thus gone backwards and forwards, and
that for several miles, he had wasted so much time, that he could not
possibly be at Ashburton by eleven o'clock, a distance of more than
twenty miles from Exeter. Enraged by this thought, he dismounted from
his horse on Haldon Common, between Exeter and Teignmouth, cut a
large stick out of the hedge and determined to beat his wife with
that stick, as long as a part of it remained. At last he reached his
home, late in the afternoon, and found his wife had been baptized. In
a great rage he now began to beat her, and continued to do so, till
the stick in his hand was actually broken to pieces. Having thus most
cruelly treated her, her body being full of bruises, he ordered her
to bed. She meekly began to undress herself, and intended to go to
bed, without saying a word. But when he saw her about to go, he said,
"You shall not sleep in my bed any more. Go to the children's bed."
She obeyed. When now on the point of lying down on the children's
bed, he ran into the kitchen, fetched a piece of wood, threw her down
on the bed, and was about to begin again to beat her, when suddenly
he let the piece of wood fall, and went away without saying a word.
The poor suffering wife saw no more of him that evening or night. On
the next morning, Saturday, before she had risen, her husband left
the house, and was absent all day till the evening. In the evening
the wife gave him to understand when retiring for the night, that,
according to his wish, she was again going to sleep in th