e; lor bless you! they said he'd
got no more grip o' the hoss than if his legs had been cross-sticks: my
grandfather heared old Squire Cass say so many and many a time. But
ride he would, as if Old Harry had been a-driving him; and he'd a son,
a lad o' sixteen; and nothing would his father have him do, but he must
ride and ride--though the lad was frighted, they said. And it was a
common saying as the father wanted to ride the tailor out o' the lad,
and make a gentleman on him--not but what I'm a tailor myself, but in
respect as God made me such, I'm proud on it, for "Macey, tailor", 's
been wrote up over our door since afore the Queen's heads went out on
the shillings. But Cliff, he was ashamed o' being called a tailor, and
he was sore vexed as his riding was laughed at, and nobody o' the
gentlefolks hereabout could abide him. Howsomever, the poor lad got
sickly and died, and the father didn't live long after him, for he got
queerer nor ever, and they said he used to go out i' the dead o' the
night, wi' a lantern in his hand, to the stables, and set a lot o'
lights burning, for he got as he couldn't sleep; and there he'd stand,
cracking his whip and looking at his hosses; and they said it was a
mercy as the stables didn't get burnt down wi' the poor dumb creaturs
in 'em. But at last he died raving, and they found as he'd left all
his property, Warrens and all, to a Lunnon Charity, and that's how the
Warrens come to be Charity Land; though, as for the stables, Mr.
Lammeter never uses 'em--they're out o' all charicter--lor bless you!
if you was to set the doors a-banging in 'em, it 'ud sound like thunder
half o'er the parish."

"Aye, but there's more going on in the stables than what folks see by
daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?" said the landlord.

"Aye, aye; go that way of a dark night, that's all," said Mr. Macey,
winking mysteriously, "and then make believe, if you like, as you
didn't see lights i' the stables, nor hear the stamping o' the hosses,
nor the cracking o' the whips, and howling, too, if it's tow'rt
daybreak. "Cliff's Holiday" has been the name of it ever sin' I were a
boy; that's to say, some said as it was the holiday Old Harry gev him
from roasting, like. That's what my father told me, and he was a
reasonable man, though there's folks nowadays know what happened afore
they were born better nor they know their own business."

"What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas?" said the landlord, turning to
the fa