The tithe proctor was generally waked out of his first sleep by his door being smashed in; and the boys in white shirts desired him “never to fear,” as they only intended to card him this bout for taking a quarter instead of a tenth from every poor man in the parish.  They then turned him on his face upon the bed; and taking a lively ram cat out of a bag which they brought with them, they set the cat between the proctor’s shoulders.  The beast, being nearly as much terrified as the proctor, would endeavour to get off; but being held fast by the tail, he intrenched every claw deep in the proctor’s back, in order to keep up a firm resistance to the White Boys.  The more the tail was pulled back, the more the ram cat tried to go forward; at length, when he had, as he conceived, made his possession quite secure, main force convinced him to the contrary, and that if he kept his hold he must lose his tail.  So, he was dragged backward to the proctor’s loins, grappling at every pull, and bringing away here and there strips of the proctor’s skin, to prove the pertinacity of his defence.

When the ram cat had got down to the loins he was once more placed at the shoulders, and again carded the proctor (toties quoties) according to his sentence.

* * * * *

WALKING GALLOWS.

(From Sir Jonah Barrington’s Sketches.)

Among the extraordinary characters that turned up in the fatal “ninety-eight,” there were few more extraordinary than Lieutenant H——­, then denominated the “walking gallows;”—­and such he certainly was, literally and practically.

Lieutenant H——­ was an officer of the line on half pay.  His brother was one of the solicitors to the Crown—­a quiet, tremulous, vino deditus sort of man, and a leading Orangeman;—­his widow who afterwards married and survived a learned doctor, was a clever, positive, good-looking Englishwoman, and, I think, fixed the doctor’s avowed creed:  as to his genuine faith, that was of little consequence.

Lieutenant H——­ was about six feet two inches high;—­strong, and broad in proportion.  His strength was great, but of the dead kind unaccompanied by activity.  He could lift a ton, but could not leap a rivulet; he looked mild, and his address was civil—­neither assuming nor at all ferocious.  I knew him well, and from his countenance should never have suspected him of cruelty; but so cold-blooded and so eccentric an executioner of the human race I believe never yet existed, save among the American Indians.[6]

    [6] His mode of execution being perfectly novel, and at the same
    time ingenious, Curran said, “The lieutenant should have got a
    patent for cheap strangulation.”

His inducement to the strange barbarity he practised I can scarcely conceive; unless it proceeded from that natural taint of cruelty which so often distinguishes man above all other animals when his power becomes uncontrolled.  The propensity was probably strengthened in him from the indemnities of martial law, and by those visions of promotion whereby violent partizans are perpetually urged, and so frequently disappointed.