a house is alive
or dead from here."

"How long have you had your place in the Punch-Bowl, Bideabout?"

"I've heard say my grandfather was the first squatter. But the
Rocliffes, Boxalls, Snellings, and Nashes will have it they're
older. What do I care so long as I have the best squat in the lot."

That the reader may understand the allusions a word or two must
be allowed in explanation of the settlements in the Punch-Bowl.

This curious depression in the sand range is caused by a number
of springs welling up several hundred feet below the summit of
the range. The rain that falls on the hills sinks through the sand
until it reaches an impervious bed of clay, when it breaks forth
at many orifices. These oozing springs in course of vast ages have
undermined and washed away the superincumbent sand and have formed
the crater called the Devil's Punch-Bowl. The bottom is one
impassable swamp, and the water from the springs flows away to
the north through an opening in the sand-hills.

At some unknown date squatters settled in the Punch-Bowl, at a
period when it was in as wild and solitary a region as any in
England. They enclosed portions of the slopes. They built themselves
hovels; they pastured their sheep, goats, cattle on the sides of
the Punch-Bowl, and they added to their earnings the profits of a
trade they monopolized--that of making and selling brooms.

On the lower slopes of the range grew coppices of Spanish chestnut,
and rods of this wood served admirably for broom-handles. The
heather when long and wiry and strong, covered with its harsh
leafage and myriad hard knobs, that were to burst into flower,
answered for the brush.

On account of this manufacture, the squatters in the Punch-Bowl
went by the designation of Broom-Squires. They provided with
brooms every farm and gentleman's house, nay, every cottage for
miles around. A wagon-load of these besoms was often purchased,
and the supply lasted some years.

The Broom-Squires were an independent people. They used the turf
cut from the common for fuel, and the farmers were glad to carry
away the potash as manure for their fields.

Another business supplemented farming and broom-making. That was
holly-cutting and getting. The Broom-Squires on the approach of
Christmas scattered over the country, and wherever they found holly
trees and bushes laden with berries, without asking permission,
regardless of prohibition, they cut, and then when they had a
cartlo