I had not walked more than three miles before I came to a wonderfully high church steeple, which stood close by the road; I looked at the steeple, and going to a heap of smooth pebbles which lay by the roadside, I took up some, and then went into the churchyard, and placing myself just below the tower, my right foot resting on a ledge about two foot from the ground, I, with my left hand--being a left-handed person, do you see--flung or chucked up a stone, which lighting on the top of the steeple, which was at least a hundred and fifty feet high, did there remain.

After repeating this feat two or three times, I 'hulled' up a stone, which went clean over the tower, and then one--my right foot still on the ledge--which, rising at least five yards above the steeple, did fall down just at my feet.
Without knowing it, I was showing off my gift to others besides myself, doing what, perhaps, not five men in England could do.

Two men, who were passing by, stopped and looked at my proceedings, and when I had done flinging came into the churchyard, and, after paying me a compliment on what they had seen me do, proposed that I should join company with them; I asked them who they were, and they told me.

The one was Hopping Ned and the other Biting Giles.

Both had their gifts, by which they got their livelihood; Ned could hop a hundred yards with any man in England, and Giles could lift up with his teeth any dresser or kitchen table in the country, and standing erect hold it dangling in his jaws.