guineas," of the wonderful sale of
corn that he effected for one of his masters. At the rectory gatherings
on Christmas night Will was one of the principal singers, his
_chef-d'oeuvre_ "Oh! silver [query _Sylvia_] is a charming thing," and
"The Helmingham Wolunteers." That famous corps was raised by Lord Dysart
to repel "Bony's" threatened invasion; its drummer was John Noble,
afterwards the wheelwright in Monk Soham. Once after drill Lord Dysart
said to him: "You played that very well, John Noble;" and "I know't, my
lord, I know't," was John's answer--an answer that has passed into a
Suffolk proverb, "I know't, my lord, I know't, as said John Noble."

Mrs Curtis was quite a character--a little woman, with sharp brown eyes
that took in everything. Her tongue was smooth, her words were soft, and
yet she could say bitter things. She had had a large family, who married
and settled in different parts. One son had gone to New Zealand--"a
country, Dr Fletcher tell me, dear Miss, as is outside the frame of the
earth, and where the sun go round t'other way." It was for one of her
sons, when he was ill, that my mother sent a dose of castor-oil; and next
day the boy sent to ask for "some more of Madam Groome's nice gravy."
Another boy, Ephraim, once behaved so badly in church that my father had
to stop in his sermon and tell Mrs Curtis to take her son out. This she
did; and from the pulpit my father saw her driving the unfortunate
Ephraim before her with her umbrella, banging him with it first on one
side and then on the other. Mrs Curtis it was who prescribed the honey-
plaster for a sore throat. "Put on a honey-plaster, neighbour dear; that
will draw the misery out of you." And Mrs Curtis it was who, having
quarrelled with another neighbour, came to my father to relate her
wrongs: "Me a poor lone widow woman, and she ha' got a father to protect
her." The said father was old James Burrows, already spoken of, who was
over ninety, and had long been bedridden.

Mrs Mullinger was a strange old woman. People said she had an evil eye;
and if she took a dislike to any one and looked evilly at their pigs,
then the pigs would fall ill and die. Also, when she lived next door to
another cottage, with only a wall dividing the two chimneys, if old Mrs
Mullinger sat by her chimney in a bad temper, no one on the other side
could light a fire, try as they might.

{Monk Soham Schoolhouse and Guildhall: p30.jpg}

Phoebe Smith and