* * * * *
'He is a great fool who is ever dishonest in England. Any person who has
any natural gift, and everybody has some natural gift, is sure of finding
encouragement in this noble country of ours, provided he will but exhibit
it. I had not walked more than three miles before I came to a
wonderfully high church steeple, which stood close by the road; I looked
at the steeple, and going to a heap of smooth pebbles which lay by the
roadside, I took up some, and then went into the churchyard, and placing
myself just below the tower, my right foot resting on a ledge, about two
feet from the ground, I, with my left hand--being a left-handed person,
do you see--flung or chucked up a stone, which lighting on the top of the
steeple, which was at least a hundred and fifty feet high, did there
remain. After repeating this feat two or three times, I "hulled" up a
stone, which went clean over the tower, and then one, my right foot still
on the ledge, which rising at least five yards above the steeple, did
fall down just at my feet. Without knowing it, I was showing off my gift
to others besides myself, doing what, perhaps, not five men in England
could do. Two men, who were passing by, stopped and looked at my
proceedings, and when I had done flinging came into the churchyard, and,
after paying me a compliment on what they had seen me do, proposed that I
should join company with them; I asked them who they were, and they told
me. The one was Hopping Ned, and the other Biting Giles.
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