Joe was a man of prodigious strength; he could bend a strong iron poker over his arm, and had frequently straightened an ordinary horse-shoe in its cold state with his hands.  He could also squeeze the blood from the finger ends of any one who incurred his anger.  He was an habitual drunkard, his greatest boast being that he had once been “teetotal” for a whole forenoon.  When he died he was an overgrown mass of superfluous fat, weighing at least twenty-five stone.  He was said to have earned quite a thousand pounds per year by his encroachments into the province of the cleric, and when on his deathbed he heard three carriages arrive, he consented to marry the three wealthy couples they contained, and found himself two or three hundred pounds richer than before.  He also boasted that the marriage business had been in his family for quite one hundred years, and that his uncle, the old soldier Gordon, used to marry couples in the full uniform of his regiment, the British Grenadiers.  He gave a form of certificate that the persons had declared themselves to be single, that they were married by the form of the Kirk of Scotland, and agreeably to that of the Church of England.

[Illustration:  GRETNA GREEN.]

One of the most celebrated elopements to Gretna was that of the Earl of Westmorland and Miss Child, the daughter of the great London banker.  The earl had asked for the hand of Sarah, and had been refused, the banker remarking, “Your blood is good enough, but my money is better,” so the two young people made it up to elope and get married at Gretna Green.  The earl made arrangements beforehand at the different stages where they had to change horses, but the banker, finding that his daughter had gone, pursued them in hot haste.  All went well with the runaway couple until they arrived at Shap, in Westmorland, where they became aware they were being pursued.  Here the earl hired all the available horses, so as to delay the irate banker’s progress.  The banker’s “money was good,” however, and the runaways were overtaken between Penrith and Carlisle.  Hero the earl’s “blood was good,” for, taking deliberate aim at the little star of white on the forehead of the banker’s leading horse, he fired successfully, and so delayed the pursuit that the fugitives arrived at Gretna first; and when the bride’s father drove up, purple with rage and almost choking from sheer exasperation, he found them safely locked in what was called the bridal chamber!  The affair created a great sensation in London, where the parties were well known, heavy bets being made as to which party would win the race.  At the close of the market it stood at two to one on the earl and the girl.