the master gave. But while Mr. Wilson left pered home and brought on my back this bit the guilty boy to the management of the of a hammock, which is indeed my own bed, master, he thought it became him, as a min- and put Giles upon it: we then lifted him ister and a magistrate, to go to the extent of up, bed and all, as tenderly as if he had been the law in punishing the father. Early on a gentleman, and brought him in here. My the Monday morning he sent to apprehend wife has just brought him a drop of nice Giles. In the meantime Mr Wilson was broth; and now, sir, as I have done what! sent for to a gardener's house two miles dis- could for this poor perishing body, it was I tant, to attend a man who was dying. This who took the liberty to send to you to come was a duty to which all others gave way in to try to help his poor soul, for the doctor his mind. He set out directly; but what says he can't live.' was his surprise, on his arrival, to see, on a little bed on the floor, poaching Giles lying in all the agonies of death! Jack Weston, the same poor young man against whom Giles had informed for killing a hare, was kneeling by him, offering him some broth, and talking to him in the kindest manner Mr. Wilson begged to know the meaning of all this; and Jack Weston spoke as fol lows: of thrown away!' He languished a few lays, and died in great misery:-a fresh and sad instance that people who abuse the grace God and resist his spirit, find it difficult to repent when they will. Mr. Wilson could not help saying to himself, Such an action as this is worth a whole volume of comments on that precept of our blessed Master, Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you. Giles's dying groans confirmed the sad account Weston had just given. The poor wretch could neither pray himself nor attend to the minister. He could only cry out, Oh! sir, what will become of me? I don't know how to repent. O my 'At four in the morning, as I was going out poor wicked children! Sir, I have bred them to mow, passing under the high wall of this all up in sin and ignorance. Have mercy on garden, I heard a most dismal moaning The them, sir; let me not meet them in the place nearer I came the more dismal it grew. At of torment to which I am going. Lord grant last, who should I see but poor Giles groan- them that time for repentance which I have ing, and struggling under a quantity of bricks and stones, but not able to stir. The day before he had marke a fine large net on this old wall, and resolved to steal it, for he thought it might do as well to catch partridges as to preserve cherries; so, sir, standing on the very top of this wall, and tugging with all his might to loosen the net from the hooks which fastened it, down came Giles, net, wall, and all; for the wall was gone to decay. It was very high indeed, and poor Giles not only broke his thigh, but has got a terrible blow on his head, and is bruised all over like a mummy. On seeing me, sir, poor Giles cried out, Oh, Jack! I did try to ruin thee by lodging that information, and now thou wilt be revenged by letting me lie here and perish. God forbid, Giles! cried I; thou shalt see what sort of revenge a Christian takes.' So, sir, I sent off the gardener's boy to fetch a surgeon, while I scam Except the minister and Jack Weston, no one came to see poor Giles, besides Tommy Price, who had been so sadly wronged by him. Tom often brought him his own ricemilk or apple-dumpling; and Giles, ignor ant and depraved as he was, often cried out, That he thought now there must be some truth in religion, since it taught even a boy to deny himself, and to forgive an injury. Mr. Wilson, the next Sunday, made a moving discourse on the danger of what are called petty offences. This, together with the awful death of Giles, produced such an effect, that no poacher has been able to show his head in that parish ever since. TAWNEY RACHEL; OR, THE FORTUNE TELLER : WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF DREAMS, OMENS, AND CONJURERS. TAWNEY RACHEL was the wife of poaching Giles. There seemed to be a conspiracy in Giles's whole family to maintain themselves by tricks and pilfering. Regular la bour and honest industry did not suit their idle habits. They had a sort of genius at finding out every unlawful means to support a vagabond life. Rachel travelled the country with a basket on her arm. She pretended to get her bread by selling laces, cabbagenets, ballads and history books, and used to buy old rags and rabbit skins for getting admittance into farmers' kitchens. in order to tell fortunes. She was continually practising on the credulity of silly girls; and took advantage of their ignorance to cheat and deceive them. Many an innocent servant has she caused to be suspected of a robbery, while she herself, perhaps, was in league with the thief. Many a harmless maid has she brought to ruin by first contriving plots and events herself, and then pretending to foretel them. She bad Many honest not, to be sure, the power of really foretelling things, because she had no power of seeing into futurity: but she had the art sometimes to bring them about according as she foretold them. So she got that credit for people trade in these things, and I am sure I do not mean to say a word against honest people, let them trade in what they will. But Rachel only made this traffic a pretence her wisdom which really belonged to her wickedness. Rachel was also a famous interpreter of dreams, and could distinguish exactly between the fate of any two persons who happened to have a mole on the right or the left cheek. She had a cunning way of getting herself off when any of her prophesies failed. When she explained a dream according to the natural appearance of things, and it did not come to pass; then she would get out of that scrape by saying, that this sort of dreams went by contraries. Now of two very opposite things, the chance always is that one of them may turn out to be true; so in either case she kept up the cheat. 6 on no pretence to open it in less than fortyeight hours. If,' added she, you closely follow these directions, then, by the power of my art, you will find the basin conveyed to the very stone under which the money lies hid, and a fine treasure it be!' Mrs. Jenkins, who firmly believed every word the woman said, did exactly as she was told, and Rachel took her leave with a handsome reward. When farmer Jenkins came home he desired his wife to draw him a cup of cider; this she put off so long that he began to be displeased. At last she begged he would be so good as to drink a little beer instead. He insisted on knowing the reason, and when at last he grew angry, she told him all that had Rachel, in one of her rambles, stopped at passed; and owned that as the pot of gold the house of farmer Jenkins. She contrived happened to be in the cider cellar, she did to call when she knew the master of the not dare open the door, as she was sure it house was from home, which indeed was her would break the charm. And it would be usual way. She knocked at the door; the a pity you know,' said she, to lose a good maids being in the field haymaking, Mrs fortune for the sake of a draught of cider.' Jenkins went to open it herself. Rachel The farmer, who was not so easily imposed asked her if she would please to let her light upon, suspected a trick. He demanded the her pipe? This was a common pretence, key, and went and opened the cellar door ; when she could find no other way of getting there he found the basin, and in it five round into a house. While she was filling her pipe, pieces of tin covered with powder. Mrs. she looked at Mrs. Jenkins, and said, she Jenkins burst out a-crying; but the farmer could tell her some good fortune. The farm- thought of nothing but of getting a warrant er's wife, who was a very inoffensive, but a to apprehend the cunning woman. Indeed weak and superstitious woman, was curious she well proved her claim to that name, to know what she meant. Rachel then look-when she insisted that the cellar door might ed about carefully, and shutting the door be kept locked till she had time to get out of with a mysterious air, asked her if she was the reach of all pursuit. sure nobody would hear them. This appear- Poor Sally Evans! I am sure she rued the ance of mystery was at once delightful and day that ever she listened to a fortune-teller. terrifying to Mrs. Jenkins, who, with trem- Sally was as harmless a girl as ever churned bling agitation, bid the cunning woman speak a pound of butter; but Sally was credulous, out. Then,' said Rachel in a solemn whis- ignorant, and superstitious. She delighted per, there is to my certain knowledge a in dream-books, and had consulted all the pot of money hid under one of the stones in cunning women in the country to tell her your cellar. Indeed!' said Mrs. Jenkins, whether the two moles on her cheek denoted it is impossible, for now I think of it, I that she was to have two husbands, or two dreamt last night I was in prison for debt.' children. If she picked up an old horse-shoe 'Did you really" said Rachel; that is quite going to church, she was sure that would be surprising. Did you dream this before twelve a lucky week. She never made a blacko'clock or after?-O it was this morning pudding without borrowing one of the parjust before I awoke.' Then I am sure it is son's old wigs to hang in the chimney, firmly true, for morning dreams always go by con- believing there was no other means to pretraries,' cried Rachel. How lucky it was serve them from burning. She would never you dreamt it so late.'-Mrs. Jenkins could go to bed on Midsummer eve without stickhardly contain her joy, and asked how the ing up in her room the well-known plant money was to be come at. There is but called Midsummer-men, as the bending of one way,' said Rachel; I must go into the the leaves to the right or to the left, would cellar. I know by my art under which stone not fail to tell her whether Jacob, of whom it lies, but I must not tell.' Then they both we shall speak presently, was true or false. went down into the cellar, but Rachel refus- She would rather go five miles about than ed to point at the stone unless Mrs Jenkins pass near a church-yard at night. Every would put five pieces of gold into a basin and seventh year she would not eat beans bedo as she directed. The simple woman, in- cause they grew downward in the pod, instead of turning her out of doors for a cheat, stead of upward; and, though a very neat did as she was bid. She put the guineas into girl, she would rather have gone with her a basin which she gave into Rachel's hand. gown open than have taken a pin from an old Rachel strewed some white powder over the woman, for fear of being bewitched. Poor gold, muttered some barbarous words, and Sally had so many unlucky days in her calenpretended to perform the black art. She dar, that a large portion of her time became then told Mrs. Jenkins to put the basin qui- of little use, because on these days she did etly down within the cellar; telling her that not dare set about any new work. And she if she offered to look into it, or even to speak would have refused the best offer in the a word, the charm would be broken. She country if made to her on a Friday, which also directed her to lock the cellar door, and she thought so unlucky a day that she often 270 said what a pity it was that there were any she, it is a lucky one, for it cured me of a with whom she lived fellow servant at a cred-gave the virtue to this sixpence was, that it While Sally was above stairs untying her glove, Rachel slipped in to the parlour, took a small silver cup from the beaufet, and clapped it into her pocket. Sally ran down, lamenting that she had lost her sixpence, which she verily believed was owing to her having put it into a left glove, instead of a right one. Rachel comforted her by saying, that if she gave her two plain ones instead, the charm Simple Sally Rachel undertook the business. She set would work just as well. off to the farm-house, and fell to singing one thought herself happy to be let off so easily, But this skill of her most enticing songs just under the da- never calculating that a smooth shilling was ry window. Sally was so struck with the worth two crooked sixpences. pretty tune, which was unhappily used, as is was a part of the black art in which Rachel too often the case, to set off some very loose excelled. She took the money and began to words, that she jumped up, dropped the examine the lines of Sally's left hand. She skimming dish into the cream and ran out to bit her withered lip, shook her head, and bade buy the song. While she stooped down to her poor dupe beware of a young man who No, indeed,' cried Sally, rummage the basket for those songs which had black hair. had the most tragical pictures (for Sally had all in a fright, 'you mean black eyes, for That is the very thing! a tender heart, and delighted in whatever our Jacob has got brown hair, 'tis bis eyes was mournful) Rachel looked stedfastly in that are black." her face, and told her she knew by art that was going to say,' muttered Rachel, I she was born to good fortune, but advised meant eyes, though I said hair, for I know These two his hair is as brown as a chesnut, and his eyes 'So they are, sure her not to throw herself away. moles on your cheek,' added she, show you as black as a sloe.' are in some danger.' Do they denote hus- enough,' cried Sally, how in the world bands or children?' cried Sally, starting up, could you know that? forgetting that she and letting fall the song of the Children in herself had just told her so. the Wood Husbands, muttered Rachel that these hags pick out of the credulous all Alas! poor Jacob!' said Sally, mournfully, which they afterwards pretend to reveal to Mum for them. Ó, I know a pretty deal more than then he will die first, won't he? Why so,' cried Sally, with that,' quoth the fortune teller, I will say no that,' said Rachel, but you must be aware more.' Sally was impatient, but the more of this man.' curiosity she discovered, the more mystery great quickness: Because,' aswered RaAt last, she said, "if you chel, you are fated to marry a man worth a Rachel affected. will cross my hand with a piece of silver, hundred of him, who has blue eyes, light will tell your fortune. By the power of my hair, and a stoop in the shoulders.'No, inart I can do this three ways; first by cards, deed, but I can't,' said Sally; I have prom next by the lines on your hand, or by turning ised Jacob, and Jacob I will marry.' You a cup of tea grounds; which will you have? cannot, child,' returned Rachel in a solemn O, all! all cried Sally, looking up with tone; it is out of your power, you are faled reverence to this sun-burnt oracle of wis- to marry the gray eyes and light hair. Nay, abm, who was possessed of no less than three indeed,' said Sally, sighing deeply, if I am different ways of diving into the secrets of fated, 1 must; I know there's no resisting futurity. Alas! persons of better sense than Sally have been so taken in; the more is the pity. The poor girl said she would run up stairs to her little box where she kept her money tied up in a bit of an old glove, and would bring down a bright queen Ann's sixI am sure,' added pence very crooked. I one's fate.' And it is thus This is a common cant with poor deluded girls, who are not aware that resisting it. they themselves make their fate by their fol ly, and then complain there is no You must take What can I do? said Sally. I will tell you that, too,' said Rachel. a walk next Sunday afternoon to the church · 6 yard, and the first man you meet in a blue attention not to walk over any straws which coat, with a large posy of pinks and southern- lay across, and carefully looking to see if wood in his bosom, sitting on the church- there were never an old horse-shoe in the yard wall, about seven o'clock, he will be way, that infallible symptom of good for the man.' Provided,' said Sally, much dis- tune. While the clock was striking seven, turbed, that he has gray eyes and stoops.' she returned to the church-yard, and O! the 'O, to be sure,' said Rachel, otherwise it is wonderful power of fortune-tellers! there not the right man.' But if I should mis- she saw him! there sat the very man! his take,' said Sally, for two men may happen hair as light as flax, his eyes as blue as butto bave a coat and eyes of the same colour?' ter-milk, and his shoulders as round as a tub. To prevent that,' replied Bachel, if it is Every tittle agreed to the very nosegay in the right man, the two first letters of his name his waistcoat button-hole. At first, indeed, will be R. P. This man has got money be- she thought it had been sweetbrier, and glad yond sea. O, I do not value his money,' to catch at a straw, whispered to herself, it is said Sally, with tears in her eyes, for I love not he, and I shall marry Jacob still; but Jacob better than house or land; but if I am on looking again, she saw it was southernfated to marry another, I can't help it; you wood plain enough, and that of course all know there is no struggling against my fate.' was over. Poor Sally thought of nothing, and dreamt of nothing all the week but the blue coat and the gray eyes. She made a hundred blunders at her work. She put her rennet into the butter-pan, and her skimming-dish into the cheese-tub. She gave the curds to the hogs, and put the whey into the vats. She put her little knife out of her pocket for fear it should cut love, and would not stay in the kitchen if there was not an even number of people, lest it should break the charm. She grew cold and mysterious in her behaviour to faithful Jacob, whom she truly loved But the more she thought of the fortune-teller, the more she was convinced that brown hair and black eyes were not what she was fated to marry, and therefore, though she trembled to think it, Jacob could not be the man. The man accosted her with some very nonsensical, but too acceptable, compliments. Sally was naturally a modest girl, and but for Rachel's wicked arts, would not have had courage to talk with a strange man; but how could she resist her fate you know? After a little discourse, she asked him, with a trembling heart, what might be his name? Robert Price, at your service, was the answer. Robert Price! that is R. P. as sure as I am alive, and the fortune-teller was a witch! It is all out! it is all out! O the wonderful art of fortune-tellers!' The little sleep she had that night was disturbed with dreams of graves, and ghosts, and funerals, but as they were morning dreams, she knew those always went by contraries, and that a funeral denoted a wedding. Still a sigh would now and then beave, to think that in that wedding Jacob On Sunday she was too uneasy to go to could have no part Such of my readers as church; for poor Sally had never been know the power which superstition has over taught that ber being uneasy was only a fresh the weak and credulous mind, scarcely need reason why she ought to go thither. She be told, that poor Sally's unhappiness was spent the whole afternoon in her little garret, soon completed. She forgot all her vows to dressing in all her best. First she put on Jacob; she at once forsook an honest man her red riband, which she had bought at last whom she loved, and consented to marry a Lammas fair then she recollected that red stranger, of whom she knew nothing, from a was an unlucky colour, and changed it for a ridiculous notion that she was compelled to blue riband, tied in a true lover's knot; but do so by a decree which she had it not in her suddenly calling to mind that poor Jacob had power to resist. She married this Richard bought this knot for her of a pedlar at the Price, the strange gardener, whom she soon door, and that she had promised to wear it found to be very worthless, and very much for his sake, her heart smote her, and she in debt. He had no such thing as money laid it by, sighing to think she was not fated beyond sea,' as the fortune-teller had told to marry the man who had given it to her.-her; but alas! he had another wife there.When she had looked at herself twenty times He got immediate possession of Sally's in the glass (for one vain action always brings twenty pounds. Rachel put in for her share, on another) she set off, trembling and shak- but he refused to give her a farthing, and bid ing every step she went. She walked eager-her get away or he would have her taken up ly towards the church-yard, not daring to on the vagrant act. He soon ran away from look to the right or left, for fear she should Sally, leaving her to bewail her own weakspy Jacob, who would have offered to walk ness; for it was that indeed, and not any irwith her, and so have spoilt all. As soon as resistible fate, which had been the cause of she came within sight of the wall, she spied her ruin. To complete her misery, she hera man sitting upon it: Her heart beat vio- self was suspected of having stolen the sillently. She looked again; but alas! the ver cup which Rachel had pocketed. Her stranger not only had on a black coat, but master, however, would not prosecute her, neither hair nor eyes answered the descrip-as she was falling into a deep decline, and she tion. She now happened to cast her eyes on the church-clock, and found she was two hours before her time. This was some comfort. She walked away and got rid of the wo hours as well as she could, paying great died in a few months of a broken heart, a sad warning to all credulous girls. Rachel, whenever she got near home, used to drop her trade of fortune-telling, and only dealt in the wares of her basket. Mr. Wil 972 · THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE. : son, the clergyman, found her one day deal- say to cheats, impostors, cunning-women, for Listen to me, your true friend. ing out some very wicked ballads to some tune-tellers, conjurers, and interpreters of children. He went up with a view to give dreams. her a reprimand; but had no sooner begun when I assure you that God never reveals To consult these his exhortation than up came a constable, to weak and wicked women those secret defollowed by several people. There she is, signs of his providence, which no buman that is the old witch who tricked my wife wisdom is able to foresee. out of the five guineas,' said one of them. false oracles is not only foolish, but sinful. Do your office constable, seize that old hag. It is foolish, because they are themselves as She may tell fortunes and find pots of gold ignorant as those whom they pretend to God inin Taunton jail, for there she will have noth- teach and it is sinful, because it is prying ing else to do!' This was that very farmer into that futurity which God, in mercy as Jenkins, whose wife had been cheated by well as wisdom, hides from men. Rachel of the five guineas. He had ta- deed orders all things; but when you have a It is indeed ken pains to trace her to her own parish: mind to do a foolish thing, do not fancy you Prudence is his he did not so much value the loss of the are filed to do it. This is tempting Provimoney, as he thought it was a duty he owed dence, and not trusting him. the public to clear the country of such ver-charging God with folly. min. Mr. Wilson immediately committed gift, and you obey him better when you inake her. She took her trial at the next assizes, use of prudence, under the direction of praywhen she was sentenced to a year's impris-er, than when you madly run into ruin, and onment. In the meantime, the pawnbroker think you are only submitting to your fate. to whom she had sold the silver cup, which Never fancy that you are compelled to undo she had stolen from poor Sally's master, yourself, or to crush upon your own destrucimpeached her; and as the robbery was ful- tion, in compliance with any supposed fatally proved upon Rachel, she was sentenced ity. Never believe that God conceals his for this crime to Botany Bay; and a happy will from a sober Christian who obeys his day it was for the county of Somerset, when laws, and reveals it to a vagabond gypsey She was who runs up and down breaking the laws such a nuisance was sent out of it. transported much about the same time that both of God and man. King Saul never her husband Giles lost his life, in stealing consulted the witch till he had left off serving better than any conjurer, and there are no the net from the garden wall, as related in God. The Bible will direct us what to do the second part of poaching Giles. days unlucky but those which we make so by our own vanity, sin and folly. I have thought it my duty to print this little history, as a kind warning to all you young men and maidens not to have any thing to THOUGHTS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MANNERS OF THE GREAT To a large and honourable class of the marks, therefore, are principally written with a view to those persons of rank and fortune who live within the restraints of moral obligation, and acknowledge the truth of the tances they allow themselves in practices Christian religion; and who, if in certain innot compatible with a strict profession of Christianity, seem to do it rather from babit and want of reflection, than either from disbelief of its doctrines, or contempt of its precepts. İnconsideration, fashion, and the world, are three confederates against virtue, with whom live on excellent terms; and the fair reputa even good kind of people often contrive to The mass of mankind, in most places, and tion which may be obtained by a complaisant especially in those conditions of life which conformity to the prevailing practice, and by exempt them from the temptation to shame- mere decorum of manners, without a strict ful vices, is perhaps chiefly composed of what attention to religious principle, is a constant is commonly termed by the courtesy of the source of danger to the rich and great. There world good kind of people; for persons of is something almost irresistibly seducing in very flagitious wickedness are almost as rare the contagion of general example: hence as those of very eminent piety. To the lat- the necessity of that vigilance, which it is the ter of these, admonition were impertinent; business of Christianity to quicken by inces to the former it were superfluous. These re- sant admonition, and which it is the business |