Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/519

Rh John Davie, of Greedy Park, near Crediton. They were married there, and their sons were timber merchants. They were greatly delighted to see a man who could inform them about their family, and he raised vain hopes in their mind that "they were near heirs to a fine estate near Crediton." So completely were they taken in by him that they gave him money and a letter to their relative Humphry Davie, recommending Carew to his good offices. Carew embarked at New London for England. He was, however, much afraid of being pressed for the Navy on approaching England. To avoid this he pricked his breast and arms with a needle, rubbed in bay salt and gunpowder, feigned to be very ill and to be light-headed. It was suspected that he had small-pox, and as such, when an officer came on board to see what men were there, he escaped. As ill with small-pox, he was put ashore at Bristol, where he speedily threw off all appearance of sickness, made the best of his way to a mumpers' resort at Mile Hill, and had a carouse. He then made his way to Exeter, where he fell in with the captain who had conveyed him to Maryland, and who was vastly astonished to find that Carew had returned home as soon as or sooner than himself.

He now resumed his old mode of begging under false pretences.

"One day as he was begging in the town of Maiden Bradley, from Door to Door, as a shipwrecked Seaman, he saw on the other side of the Street a mendicant Brother Sailor in a Habit as forlorn as his own, a begging for God's sake, just like himself; who seeing Mr. Carew, crossed over the way and came up to him, and in the canting Language asked him where he was last Night; what Road he was going; then whether he would brush into a Boozing-ken and be his Thrums,