ad, would travel with it to London or Guildford, to attend
the Christmas market.

Not only did they obtain their fuel from the heaths, but much of
their victual as well. The sandy hills abound in rabbits, and the
lagoons and morasses at the foot of the hills in the flat land
teem with fish and wild fowl. At the present day the ponds about
Frensham are much in request for fishing--at the time of our tale
they were netted by the inhabitants of the neighborhood when they
felt a hankering after fish, and the "moors," as marshes are
locally termed, were prowled over for ducks, and the sand burrows
watched for rabbits, all without let and hindrance.

At the present date there are eight squatter families in the
Punch-Bowl, three belong to the branches of the clan of Boxall,
three to that of Snelling, and two to the less mighty clan of
Nash. At the time of which I write one of the best built houses
and the most fertile patches of land was in the possession of
the young man, Jonas Kink, commonly known as Bideabout.

Jonas was a bachelor. His father and mother were dead, and his
sister had married one of the Rocliffe's. He lived alone in his
tolerably substantial house, and his sister came in when she was
able to put it tidy for him and to do some necessary cooking.
He was regarded as close-fisted though young; his age about
twenty-three years. Hitherto no girl had caught his fancy, or had
caught it sufficiently to induce him to take one to wife.

"Tell'y what," said his sister, "you'll be nothing else but an old
hudger (bachelor)."

This was coming to be a general opinion. Jonas Kink had a heart
for money, and for that only. He sneered at girls and flouted them.
It was said that Jonas would marry no girl save for her money,
and that a monied girl might pick and choose for herself, and
such as she would most assuredly not make election of Bideabout.
Consequently he was foredoomed to be a "hudger."

"What's that?" suddenly exclaimed the Broom-Squire, who led the
way along a footpath on the side of the steep slope.

"It's a dead sheep, I fancy, Bideabout."

"A dead sheep--I wonder if it be mine. Hold hard, what's that
noise?"

"It's like a babe's cry," said the boy. "Oh, lawk! if it be dead
and ha' become a wanderer! I shu'd never have the pluck to go
home alone."

"Get along with your wanderers. It's arrant nonsense. I don't
believe a word of it."

"But there is the crying again. It is near at hand. Oh, Bideabout!