[Bill o'th Hoylus End might be termed a local Will-o'th-Wisp. He has been everything by turns, and nothing long. Now, a lean faced lad, "a mere anatomy, a mountebank, a thread bare juggler, a needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp looking wretch;" now acting the pert, bragging youth, telling quaint stories, and up to a thousand raw tricks; now tumbling and adventuring into manhood with yet the oil and fire and force of youth too strong for reason's sober guidance; and now--well and now--finding the checks of time have begun to grapple him, he looks back upon the past and tells his curious stories o'er again. Verily, as Shakespeare declares in _All's Well_, "the web of his life is of a mingled yarn, good …
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