Stories for the Young | Page 2

of their clamorous begging, should not sufficiently frighten
the horses, they are very apt to let the gate slap full against you, before
you are half way through, in their eager scuffle to snatch from each
other the halfpence which you may have thrown out to them. I know
two ladies who were one day very near being killed by these
abominable tricks.
Thus five or six little idle creatures, who might be earning a trifle by
knitting at home, who might be useful to the public by working in the
field, and who might assist their families by learning to get their bread
twenty honest ways, are suffered to lie about all day in the hope of a
few chance halfpence, which, after all, they are by no means sure of
getting. Indeed, when the neighboring gentlefolks found out that
opening the gate was the family trade, they soon left off giving any
thing. And I myself, though I used to take out a penny ready to give,
had there been only one to receive it, when I saw a whole family
established in so beggarly a trade, quietly put it back again into my
pocket, and gave nothing at all. And so few travellers pass that way,
that sometimes, after the whole family have lost a day, their gains do
not Amount to two-pence.
As Giles had a far greater taste for living by his wits than his work, he
was at one time in hopes that his children might get a pretty penny by
tumbling for the diversion of travellers, and he set about training them
in that indecent practice; but, unluckily, the moors being level, the
carriages travelled faster than the children tumbled. He envied those
parents who lived on the London road, over the Wiltshire downs, which

downs being very hilly, it enables the tumbler to keep pace with the
traveller, till he sometimes extorts from the light and the unthinking a
reward instead of a reproof. I beg leave, however, to put all gentlemen
and ladies in mind, that such tricks are a kind of apprenticeship to the
trades of begging and thieving; and that nothing is more injurious to
good morals than to encourage the poor in any habits which may lead
them to live upon chance.
Giles, to be sure, as his children grew older, began to train them to such
other employments as the idle habits they had learned at the gate very
properly qualified them for. The right of common, which some of the
poor cottagers have in that part of the country, and which is doubtless a
considerable advantage to many, was converted by Giles into the means
of corrupting his whole family; for his children, as soon as they grew
too big for the trade of begging at the gate, were promoted to the
dignity of thieving on the moor.
Here he kept two or three asses, miserable creatures, which, if they had
the good fortune to escape an untimely death by starving, did not fail to
meet with it by beating. Some of the biggest boys were sent out with
these lean and galled animals to carry sand or coals about the
neighboring towns. Both sand and coals were often stolen before they
got them to sell; or if not, they always took care to cheat in selling them.
By long practice in this art, they grew so dexterous that they could give
a pretty good guess how large a coal they could crib out of every bag
before the buyer would be likely to miss it.
All their odd time was taken up under the pretence of watching these
asses on the moor, or running after five or six half-starved geese; but
the truth is, these boys were only watching for an opportunity to steal
an odd goose of their neighbor's, while they pretended to look after
their own. They used also to pluck the quills or the down from these
poor live creatures, or half milk a cow before the farmer's maid came
with her pail. They all knew how to calculate to a minute what time to
be down in a morning to let out their lank, hungry beasts, which they
had turned over night into the farmer's field to steal a little good pasture.
They contrived to get there just time enough to escape being caught in

replacing the stakes they had pulled out for the cattle to get over. For
Giles was a prudent, long-headed fellow; and wherever he stole food
for his colts, took care never to steal stakes from the hedges at the same
time. He had sense enough to know that the gain did not make up for
the danger; he knew that a loose fagot, pulled from a neighbor's pile