Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/300

232 within were drinking and dancing. The bush is but the sacred tree reduced to its smallest dimensions, and the drinking and dancing that in former times took place around the tree are now relegated to within the house, but the bush is retained to symbolise roystering and mirth. I remember the case of a gentleman who "went off his head;" his family were reluctant to allow it to transpire. But one day a climax was put to his eccentricities by his thrusting the stable broom out at an upper window, and proclaiming, "This bush is to give notice, that within I have got two marriageable daughters on sale. Sherry stood all round. Going to the highest bidder. Going—going" His wife caught him by the shoulders, twisted him about, and said: "Gone completely—and off to the asylum you shall pack at once."

Moreton Hampstead was the birthplace of that remarkable genius George Parker Bidder. He was born in very humble circumstances, his father having been a stonemason; and at the age of seven, when his talent first became apparent, he did not know the meaning of the word "multiplication," nor could he read the common numerical symbols.

An elder brother had taught him to count to one hundred. His great haunt was the forge of the village blacksmith, a kindly old man, about whom more presently. In his workshop neighbours would gather to prove the boy with hard questions involving figures, as it soon became known that he had an extraordinary faculty for calculation. The earliest public notice of this that has been met with is in a letter dated