depredation they plundered the owner of his property, without
enriching themselves. But the pleasure of mischief was reward enough.

These and a hundred other little thieveries they committed with such
dexterity, that old Tom Crib, whose son was transported last assizes
for sheep-stealing, used to be often reproaching his boys, that Giles'
sons were worth a hundred of such blockheads as he had; for scarce a
night passed but Giles had some little comfortable thing for supper
which his boys had pilfered in the day, while his undutiful dogs never
stole any thing worth having. Giles, in the meantime, was busy in his
way; but as busy as he was in laying nets, starting coveys, and
training dogs, he always took care that his depredations should not be
confined merely to game.

Giles' boys had never seen the inside of a church, and the father
thought he knew his own interest better than to force them to it; for
church-time was the season of their harvest. Then the hens' nests were
searched, a stray duck was clapped under the smockfrock, the tools
which might have been left by chance in a farm-yard were picked up,
and all the neighboring pigeon-houses were thinned; so that Giles used
to boast to tawny Rachel, his wife, that Sunday was to them the most
profitable day in the week.

With her it was certainly the most laborious day, as she always did
her washing and ironing on Sunday morning, it being, as she said, the
only leisure day she had; for on the other days she went about the
country telling fortunes, and selling dream-books and wicked songs.
Neither her husband's nor her children's clothes were ever mended, and
if Sunday, her idle day, had not come about once in every week, it is
likely they would never have been washed either. You might, however,