Meanwhile, Mildred asked Mrs. Jeffery if she could tell us her real age.
‘I were barn’, she said, ‘in the year afore were all that there hanging and killing.’
She was exasperated when my sister could not recognise this date.
‘You know,’ she said. ‘It’s in the Spelling Book.’
We hopefully thought of the French Revolution. But no, that would make Mrs. Jeffery at least a hundred and twenty. We guessed again and again, showing ourselves in the old woman’s eyes as complete half-wits, and at last found that ‘hanging and killing’ was Mrs. Jeffery’s impression of the Battle of Waterloo.
Granny Hayden of Netherhampton to the day of her death was a delightful companion. She was nearer a hundred than ninety when she stood merrily at her wash tub in the yard behind her cottage, declaring that the secret of her perpetual youth was that she ‘ Never ran up Harnham Hill to meet trouble,’ a real proverb in the making. She possessed a splendid old crinoline dress which she had worn as a young woman, and she also had lots of bright coloured shawls. On St. George’s day, she was always ready to dress up in some of her old clothes and ‘step out’ in the village procession, laughing and enjoying it with all her might.
At the Mothers’ Meeting one afternoon, Mrs. Hayden was suddenly inspired to relate some of her early memories.
‘I can mind’, she began, ‘when Mr. Tom Wiles used to turn the barrel organ in church. ’Twer down be’ind the font, and the font ’e wurden the same one as it is now. ’E wur made o’ white stone, and all the church wer different then. ’Twas afore the restoration, see. I can mind when we ’ad a barrel organ in the barn for the first Jubilee. ’Twas for the dancing, and Mr. Taunton’e led off wi’ Mrs. Terrell, and when ’e couldn’t get anyone to stand up wi’ un, he danced wi’ a dog. Took un’ old by his front paws ’e did. I can mind the last one as was transported for stealing sheep. He was from Quidhampton, and ’e took un up to Bedford’s Folly and killed un there, and then the police come in, and they found the ’ead and the trotters in the room. My ’usband went to see someone ’anged at Salisbury. He stood up and spoke to the people, and then the bolt come down. My ’usband said as he never wanted to see another.’
Mrs. Hayden’s mention of sheep-stealing, recalls a letter written long ago by Mr. Squarey of Downton, to Lady Jeane Petherick, then a child in her home at Longford.
‘My brother-in-law, Edward Hodding, was the tenant of Odstock Farm about the year 1837–38, and one late frosty evening in the winter, he and his shepherd Thomas Selfe, having taken a last look at their sheep which were folded near the Little Yews, were walking home. As they neared the road which leads by Odstock Wood to Odstock, Mr. Hodding looked round (I dare say he was scant of breath after walking up the hill), and saw a faint column of smoke rising out of the Great Yews. They speculated what it could mean, and then concluded they would try to find out. So back they trudged by Catherine’s Barn, and on and on till they could nearly fix the spot where the smoke still rose before them. They crept quietly onwards through the yew trees, and at last, in a pit, they espied three men sitting round a fire, over which was hanging, from two forked sticks, a leg of mutton being roasted. Hodding and his shepherd were plucky men, and they rushed on them, each catching hold of one man. The other bolted off, not staying to finish his roast mutton!
‘With their prisoners, they walked down to Odstock, and thence to Salisbury jail (there were no police then), where they were taken in charge.
‘Their companion was not caught. The two were brought to trial, when it was proved by the marks on the sheep’s skin found near, that it had been stolen from a flock near Martin. Enquiry after they were taken, led to the discovery that many sheep had been stolen from distant flocks, and brought to the home of these gentry at the Great Yews to be eaten or sold when opportunity offered.
‘The thieves were convicted and sentenced to transportation. The farmers around counted their flocks more regularly thereafter, but sheep-stealing ceased to be a regular profession after the breaking up of this gang.
‘Now I will tell the pathetic story of Joshua Scamp, who lies buried in Odstock churchyard. It is well that you should know that your great great grandfather, Lord Radnor, and my father, knew all the circumstances that I am about to relate, and did their utmost to procure a mitigation of the sentence which had been passed on him for horse-stealing.
‘Odstock was a great gathering place at the time of the gipsies, who were then much more numerous than at present. They kept themselves more aloof
