Many long years agone now, the Trevlyn whose portrait hangs below in the hall--our great grandfather--gave sentence upon an old gipsy woman that she should be burnt as a witch.

Men said of her that she had overlooked their children and their cattle: that the former had become sick or silly, and that the latter had incontinently died of diseases none had heard of before.

There was such a hue and cry about her, and so many witnesses to testify the harm she had done, that all men held the case proven, and she was burnt in the sight of all the village out upon the common yonder by order of our forefather, whose office it was to see the law enforced.

There were then many of these gipsy folk scattered about the common and forest, and this old witch belonged to them.

They mustered strong upon the heath, and it was said that if the villagers had not been too strong for them they would have rescued the witch as she was led out to die.