EDOCITION LIBR, 
 
 L^ 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Education 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Louise Farrow Barr 
 
I 
 
 ! 
 
LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE 
 
 OR 
 
 THE LUCK OF LINGBOROUGH 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIANA HORATIA EWING 
 
 
 
 NEW YORK: 46 EAST 14TH STREET 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
 
 BOSTON: 100 Purchase Street 
 
Copyright, 1893, 
 By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
 
 fiducatioa 
 
 Add'l 
 
 GIFT 
 
 J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. 
 Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
15-^ 
 
 £eUtc. 
 
 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE • 
 
 THE LUCK OF LINGBOROUGH 
 
 339 
 
TO 
 
 JAMES BOYN McCOMBIE, Esq. 
 OF Aberdeen 
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK IS VERY AFFECTIONATELY 
 DEDICATED 
 
 J. H. E. 
 
LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 3j«<C 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Lob LiE-BY-THE-FiRE — the Lubber-fiend, as 
 Milton calls him — is a rough kind of Brownie 
 or House Elf, supposed to haunt some north- 
 country homesteads, where he does the work 
 of the farm laborers, for no grander wages than 
 
 " to earn his cream-bowl duly set." 
 
 (5) 
 
O LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 Not that he is insensible of the pleasures of 
 rest, for 
 
 " When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn, 
 
 His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn 
 That ten day-laborers could not end. 
 Then lies him down the Lubber-fiend, 
 And, stretched out all the chimney's length, 
 Basks at the fire his hairy strength." 
 
 It was said that a Lob Lie-by-the-fire once 
 haunted the little old Hall at Lingborough. It 
 was an old stone house on the Borders, and 
 seemed to have got its tints from the gray skies 
 that hung above it. It was cold-looking with- 
 out, but cosy within, "like a north-country 
 heart," said Miss Kitty, who was a woman of 
 sentiment, and kept a commonplace book. 
 
 It was long before Miss Kitty's time that 
 Lob Lie-by-the-fire first came to Lingborough. 
 Why and whence he came is not recorded, nor 
 when and wherefore he withdrew his valuable 
 help, which, as wages rose, and prices rose also, 
 would have been more welcome than ever. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 This tale professes not to record more of him 
 than comes within the memory of man. 
 
 Whether (as Fletcher says) he were the son 
 of a witch, if curds and cream won his heart, 
 and new clothes put an end to his labors, it 
 does not pretend to tell. His history is less 
 known than that of any other sprite. It may 
 be embodied in some oral tradition that shall 
 one day be found ; but as yet the mists of 
 forgetfulness hide it from the story-teller of 
 to-day as deeply as the sea fogs are wont to lie 
 between Lingborough and the adjacent coast. 
 
LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 THE LITTLE OLD LADIES. — ALMS DONE 
 IN SECRET. 
 
 The little old ladies of Lingborough were 
 heiresses. 
 
 Not, mind you, in the sense of being the 
 children of some mushroom millionnaire, with 
 more money than manners, and (as Miss Betty 
 had seen with her own eyes, on the daughter of 
 a manufacturer who shall be nameless) dresses 
 so fine in quality and be-furbelowed in construc- 
 tion as to cost a good quarter's income (of the 
 little old ladies), but trailed in the dirt from 
 "beggarly extravagance," or kicked out behind 
 at every step by feet which fortune (and a very 
 large fortune, too) had never taught to walk 
 properly. 
 
 **And how should she know how to walk.-*" 
 said Miss Betty. '' Her mother can't have 
 
WHAT IS BRED IN THE BONE. 9 
 
 taught her, poor body ! that ran through the 
 streets of Leith, with a creel on her back, as a 
 lassie ; and got out of her coach (lined with 
 satin, you mind, sister Kitty?) to her dying 
 day, with a bounce, all in a heap, her dress 
 caught, and her stockings exposed (among our- 
 selves, ladies!) like some good wife that's 
 afraid to be late for the market. Aye, aye ! 
 Malcolm Midden — good man! — made a fine 
 pocket of silver in a dirty trade, but his 
 women'll jerk, and toss, and bounce, and fuss, 
 and fluster for a generation or two yet, for 
 all the silks and satins he can buy 'em." 
 
 From this it will be seen that the little 
 old ladies inherited some prejudices of their 
 class, and were also endowed with a shrewd- 
 ness of observation common among all classes 
 of north-country women. 
 
 But to return to what else they inherited. 
 They were heiresses, as the last representatives 
 of a family as old in that Border country as 
 the bold blue hills which broke its horizon. 
 
10 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 They were heiresses also in default of heirs 
 male to their father, who got the land from his 
 uncle's dying childless — sons being scarce in 
 the family. They were heiresses, finally, to 
 the place and the farm, to the furniture that 
 was made when folk seasoned their wood before 
 they worked it, to a diamond brooch which they 
 wore by turns, besides two diamond rings, and 
 two black lace shawls, that had belonged to 
 their mother and their Auntie Jean, long since 
 departed thither where neither moth nor rust 
 corrupt the true riches. 
 
 As to the incomings of Lingborough, ''It 
 was nobody's business but their own," as Miss 
 Betty said to the lawyer who was their man of 
 business, and whom they consulted on little 
 matters of rent and repairs at as much length, 
 and with as much formal solemnity, as would 
 have gone elsewhere to the changing hands of 
 half a million of money. Without violating 
 their confidence, however, we may say that the 
 estate paid its way, kept them in silk stockings, 
 
OUR CONTENT IS OUR BEST HAVING. I I 
 
 and gave them new tabbinet dresses once in 
 three years. It supplied their wants the better 
 that they had inherited house plenishing from 
 their parents, "which they thanked their stars 
 was not made of tag-rag, and would last their 
 time," and that they were quite content with 
 an old home and old neighbors, and never 
 desired to change the grand air that blew 
 about their native hills for worse, in order to 
 be poisoned with bad butter, and make the 
 fortunes of extortionate lodging-house keepers. 
 
 The rental of Lingborough did more. How 
 much more the little old ladies did not know 
 themselves, and no one else shall know, till 
 that which was done in secret is proclaimed 
 from the housetops. 
 
 For they had had a religious scruple, founded 
 upon a literal reading of the scriptural com- 
 mand that a man's left hand should not know 
 what his right hand gives in alms, and this 
 scruple had been ingeniously set at rest by the 
 parson, who, failing in an attempt to explain 
 
12 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 the force of eastern hyperbole to the little 
 ladies' satisfaction, had said that Miss Betty, 
 being the elder, and the head of the house, 
 might be hkened to the right hand, and Miss 
 Kitty, as the younger, to the left, and that if 
 they pursued their good works without ostenta- 
 tion, or desiring the applause even of each other, 
 the spirit of the injunction would be fulfilled. 
 
 The parson was a good man and a clever. 
 He had (as Miss Betty justly said) a very 
 spiritual piety. But he was also gifted with 
 much shrewdness in dealing with the various 
 members of his flock. And his word was law 
 to the sisters. 
 
 Thus it came about that the little ladies' 
 charities were not known even to each other — 
 that Miss Betty turned her morning camlet twice 
 instead of once, and Miss Kitty denied herself 
 in sugar, to carry out benevolent little projects 
 which were accomplished in secret, and of 
 which no record appears in the Lingborough 
 Ledger. 
 
AT TEA WITH MRS. DUNMAW. 1 3 
 
 The little ladies of Lingborough were very 
 sociable, and there was, as they said, ** as much 
 gaiety as was good for anyone " within their 
 reach. There were at least six houses at which 
 they drank tea from time to time, all within a 
 walk. As hosts or guests, you always met the 
 same people, which was a friendly arrangement, 
 and the programmes of the entertainments were 
 so uniform, that no one could possibly feel awk- 
 ward. The best of manners and home-made 
 wines distinguished these tea parties, where the 
 company was strictly genteel, if a Httle faded. 
 Supper was served at nine, and the parson and 
 the lawyer played whist for love with different 
 partners on different evenings with strict im- 
 partiality. 
 
 Small jealousies are apt to be weak points 
 in small societies, but there was a general ac- 
 quiescence in the belief that the parson had a 
 friendly preference for the little ladies of Ling- 
 borough. 
 
 He lived just beyond them, too, which led 
 
14 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 to his invariably escorting them home. Miss 
 Betty and Miss Kitty would not for worlds have 
 been so indelicate as to take this attention for 
 granted, though it was a custom of many years' 
 standing. The older sister always went through 
 the form of asking the younger to " see if the 
 servant had come," and at this signal the parson 
 always bade the lady of the house good-night, 
 and respectfully proffered his services as an 
 escort to Lingborough. 
 
 It was a lovely evening in June, when the 
 little ladies took tea with the widow of General 
 Dunmaw at her cottage, not quite two miles 
 from their own home. 
 
 It was a memorable evening. The tea party 
 was an agreeable one. The little ladies had new 
 tabbinets on, and Miss Kitty wore the diamond 
 brooch. Miss Betty had played whist with the 
 parson, and the younger sister (perhaps because 
 of the brooch) had been favored with a good 
 deal of conversation with the lawyer. It was 
 an honor, because the lawyer bore the reputa- 
 
BONS MOTS N EPARGNENT NULS. 1 5 
 
 tion of an esprit forty and was supposed to have, 
 as a rule, a contempt for feminine intellects, 
 which good manners led him to veil under an 
 almost officious politeness in society. But horr- 
 ors are apt to be uneasy blessings, and this one 
 was at least as harassing as gratifying. For a 
 somewhat monotonous vein of sarcasm, a pain- 
 ful power of producing puns, and a dexterity in 
 suggesting doubts of everything, were the main 
 foundation of his intellectual reputation, and 
 Miss Kitty found them hard to cope with. And 
 it was a warm evening. 
 
 But women have much courage, especially to 
 defend a friend or. a 'faith, and the less Miss 
 Kitty found herself prepared for the conflict 
 the harder she esteemed it her duty to fight. 
 She fought for Church and State, for parsons 
 and poor people, for the sincerity of her friends, 
 the virtues of the Royal Family, the merit of 
 Dr. Drugson's prescriptions, and for her favorite 
 theory that there is some good in every one and 
 some happiness to be found everywhere. 
 
l6 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 She rubbed nervously at the diamond brooch 
 with her thin little mittened hands. She talked 
 very fast ; and if the lawyer were guilty of feel- 
 ing any ungallant indifference to her observa- 
 tions, she did not so much as hear his, and her 
 cheeks became so flushed that Mrs. Dunmaw 
 crossed the room in her China crape shawl and 
 said, *' My dear Miss Kitty, I'm sure you feel 
 the heat very much. Do take my fan, which is 
 larger than yours." 
 
 But Miss Kitty was saved a reply, for at this 
 moment Miss Betty turned on the sofa, and 
 said, " Dear Kitty, will you kindly see if the 
 servant — " 
 
 And the parson closed the volume of " Friend- 
 ship's Offering " which lay before him, and ad- 
 vanced towards Mrs. Dunmaw and took leave in 
 his own dignified way. 
 
 Miss Kitty was so much flustered that she 
 had not even presence of mind to look for the 
 servant, who had never been ordered to come, 
 but the parson relieved her by saying in his 
 
BONS MOTS N EPARGNENT NULS. IJ 
 
 round, deep voice, " I hope you will not refuse 
 me the honor of seeing you home, since our 
 roads happen to lie together." And she was 
 glad to get into the fresh air, and beyond the 
 doubtful compliments of the lawyer's nasal 
 suavity — " You have been very severe upon 
 me to-night. Miss Kitty. I'm sure I had no 
 notion I should find so powerful an antagonist," 
 eta 
 
1 8 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 MIDSUMMER EVE. — A LOST DIAMOND. 
 
 It was Midsummer Eve. The long light of 
 the North was pale and clear, and the western 
 sky shone luminous through the fir-wood that 
 bordered the road. Under such dim lights 
 colors deepen, and the great bushes of broom, 
 that were each one mass of golden blossom, 
 blazed like fairy watch-fires up the lane. 
 
 Miss Kitty leaned on the left arm of the par- 
 son and Miss Betty on his right. She chatted 
 gaily, which left her younger sister at leisure 
 to think of all the convincing things she had 
 not remembered to say to the lawyer, as the 
 evening breeze cooled her cheeks. 
 
 "A grand prospect for the crops, sir," said 
 Miss Betty ; *' I never saw the broom so beauti- 
 ful." But as she leaned forward to look at 
 the yellow blaze which foretells good luck to 
 
"A grand prospect for the crops, sir/' said Miss Betty; 
 " I never saw the broom so beautiful." 
 
 (19) 
 
20 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 farmers, as it shone in the hedge on the left- 
 hand side of the road, she caught sight of the 
 brooch in Miss Kitty's lace shawl. Through a 
 gap in the wood the light from the western sky 
 danced among the diamonds. But where one 
 of the precious stones should have been, there 
 was a little black hole. 
 
 ** Sister, you've lost a stone out of your 
 brooch ! " screamed Miss Betty. The little ladies 
 were well-trained, and even in that moment of 
 despair Miss Betty would not hint that her 
 sister's ornaments were not her sole property. 
 
 When Miss Kitty burst into tears the parson 
 was a little astonished as well as distressed. 
 Men are apt to be so, not perhaps because 
 women cry on such very small accounts, as 
 because the full reason does not always tran- 
 spire. Tears are often the climax of nervous 
 exhaustion, and this is commonly the result of 
 more causes than one. Ostensibly Miss Kitty 
 was " upset " by the loss of the diamond, but 
 she also wept away a good deal of the vexation 
 
WOMEN LAUGH WHEN THEY CAN. 21 
 
 of her unequal conflict with the sarcastic lawyer, 
 and of all this the parson knew nothing. 
 
 Miss Betty knew nothing of that, but she 
 knew enough of things in general to feel sure 
 that the diamond was not all the matter. 
 
 ''What is amiss, sister Kitty.?" said she. 
 "Have you hurt yourself.-* Do you feel ill .-* 
 Did you know the stone was out.-*" — *' I hope 
 you're not going to be hysterical, sister Kitty," 
 added Miss Betty anxiously ; '* there never was 
 a hysterical woman in our family yet." 
 
 " Oh dear no, sister Betty," sobbed Miss 
 Kitty ; " but it's all my fault. I know I was 
 fidgeting with it whilst I was talking ; and it's 
 a punishment on my fidgety ways, and for ever 
 presuming to wear it at all, when you're the 
 head of the family, and solely entitled to it. 
 And I shall never forgive myself if it's lost, 
 and if it's found I'll never, never wear it any 
 more." And as she deluged her best company 
 pocket-handkerchief (for the useful one was in 
 a big pocket under her dress, and could not be 
 
22 . LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 got at, the parson being present), Church, 
 State, the Royal Family, the family Bible, her 
 highest principles, her dearest affections, and 
 the diamond brooch, all seemed to swim before 
 her disturbed mind in one sea of desolation. 
 
 There was not a kinder heart than the 
 parson's towards women and children in dis- 
 tress. He tucked the little ladies again under 
 his arms, and insisted upon going back to Mrs. 
 Dunmaw's, searching the lane as they went. 
 In the pulpit or the drawing-room a ready 
 anecdote never failed him, and on this occasion 
 he had several. Tales of lost rings, and even 
 single gems, recovered in the most marvellous 
 manner and the most unexpected places — dug 
 up in gardens, served up to dinner in fishes, 
 and so forth. " Never," said Miss Kitty, after- 
 wards, " never, to her dying day, could she 
 forget his kindness." 
 
 She clung to the parson as a support under 
 both her sources of trouble, but Miss Betty ran 
 on and back, and hither and thither, looking 
 
TREASURE LOST. 23 
 
 for the diamond. Miss Kitty and the parson 
 looked too, and how many aggravating little 
 bits of glass and silica, and shining nothings 
 and good-for-nothings there are in the world, no 
 one would believe who has not looked for a 
 lost diamond on a high road. 
 
 But another story of found jewels was to be 
 added to the parson's stock. He had bent his 
 long back for about the eighteenth time, when 
 such a shimmer as no glass or silica can give 
 flashed into his eyes, and he caught up the 
 diamond out of the dust, and it fitted exactly 
 into the little black hole. 
 
 Miss Kitty uttered a cry, and at the same 
 moment Miss Betty, who was farther down the 
 road, did the same, and these were followed by 
 a third, which sounded like a mocking echo of 
 both. And then the sisters rushed together. 
 
 *' A most miraculous discovery ! " gasped 
 Miss Betty. 
 
 " You must have passed the very spot before," 
 cried Miss Kitty. 
 
24 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 "Though Vm sure, sister, what to do with it 
 now we have found it I don't know," said Miss 
 Betty, rubbing her nose, as she was wont to do 
 when puzzled. 
 
 *'It shall be taken better care of for the 
 future, sister Betty," said Miss Kitty, peni- 
 tently. " Though how it got out I can't think 
 now." 
 
 " Why, bless my soul ! you don't suppose 
 it got there of itself, sister.?" snapped Miss 
 Betty. ''How it did get there is another 
 matter." 
 
 " I felt pretty confident about it, for my own 
 part," smiled the parson as he joined them. 
 
 "Do you mean to say, sir, that you knew it 
 was there ? " asked Miss Betty, solemnly. 
 
 "I didn't know the precise spot, my dear 
 madam, but — " 
 
 " You didn't see it, sir, I hope } " said Miss 
 Betty. 
 
 "Bless me, my dear madam, I found it!" 
 cried the parson. 
 
TREASURE TROVE. 2^ 
 
 Miss Betty bridled and bit her lip. 
 
 '' I never contradict a clergyman, sir," said 
 she, " but I can only say that if you did see it, 
 it was not like your usual humanity to leave it 
 lying there." 
 
 I've got it in my hand, ma'am ! " 
 
 " Why 
 
 ' He's got it in his hand, sister ! 
 
 cried the parson and Miss Kitty in one breath. 
 
 Miss Betty was too much puzzled to be polite. 
 
 " What are you talking about } " she asked. 
 
 " The diamond, oh dear, oh dear ! T/ie dia- 
 mond!'' cried Miss Kitty. "But what are you 
 talking about, sister.'*" 
 
 " The Baby;' said Miss Betty. 
 
26 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 WHAT MISS BETTY FOUND. 
 
 It was found under a broom-bush. Miss 
 Betty was poking her nose near the bank that 
 bordered the wood, in her hunt for the diamond, 
 when she caught sight of a mass of yellow of 
 a deeper tint than the mass of broom-blossom- 
 above it, and this was the baby. 
 
 This vivid color, less opaque than ''deep 
 chrome" and a shade more orange, seems to 
 have a peculiar attraction for wandering tribes. 
 Gipsies use it, and it is a favorite color with 
 Indian squaws. To the last dirty rag it is 
 effective, whether if flutters near a tent on 
 Bagshot Heath, or in some wigwam doorway 
 makes a point of brightness against the gray 
 shadows of the pine forest. 
 
 A large kerchief of this, wound about its 
 body, was the baby's only robe, but he seemed 
 
UNDER THE BROOM-BUSH. 
 
 27 
 
 quite comfortable in it when Miss Betty found 
 him, sleeping on a pillow of deep hair moss, 
 his little brown fists closed as fast as his eyes, 
 and a crimson toadstool grasped in one of them. 
 When Miss Betty screamed the baby awoke. 
 
 and his long black lashes tickled his cheeks 
 and made him wink and cry. But by the time 
 she returned with her sister and the parson, 
 he was quite happy again, gazing up with dark 
 eyes full of delight into the glowing broom- 
 
28 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 bush, and fighting the evening breeze with 
 his feet, which were entangled in the folds 
 of the yellow cloth, and with the battered 
 toadstool which was still in his hand. 
 
 "And, indeed, sir," said Miss Betty, who had 
 rubbed her nose till it looked like the twin 
 toadstool to that which the baby was flourish- 
 ing in her face, ''you won't suppose I would 
 have left the poor little thing another moment, 
 to catch its death of cold on a warm evening 
 like this ; but having no experience of such 
 cases, and remembering that murder at the inn 
 in the Black Valley, and that the body was not 
 allowed to be moved till the constables had 
 seen it, I didn't feel to know how it might be 
 with foundlings, and — " 
 
 But still Miss Betty did not touch the bairn. 
 She was not accustomed to children. But the 
 parson had christened too many babies to be 
 afraid of them, and he picked up the little 
 fellow in a moment, and tucked the yellow rag 
 round him, and then addressing the little ladies 
 
AN UNANSWERED QUESTION. 29 
 
 precisely as if they were sponsors, he asked in 
 his deep round voice, " Now where on the face 
 of the earth are the vagabonds who have de- 
 serted this child ? " 
 
 The little ladies did not know, the broom- 
 bushes were silent, and the question has 
 remained unanswered from that day to this. 
 
30 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 THE BABY, THE LAWYER, AND THE 
 PARSON. 
 
 There were no railways near Lingborough at 
 this time. The coach ran three times a week, 
 and a walking postman brought the letters from 
 the town to the small hamlets. Telegraph 
 , wires were unknown, and yet news travelled 
 quite as fast then as it does now, and in the 
 course of the following morning all the neigh- 
 borhood knew that Miss Betty had found a 
 baby under a broom-bush, and the lawyer called 
 in the afternoon to inquire how the ladies found 
 themselves after the tea party at Mrs. General 
 Dunmaw's. 
 
 Miss Kitty was glad on the whole. She felt 
 nervous, but ready for a renewal of hostilities. 
 Several clinching arguments had occurred to 
 her in bed last night, and after hastily looking 
 
THE DAY AFTER THE PARTY. 3 1 
 
 up a few lines from her common-place book, 
 which always made her cry when she read 
 them, but which she hoped to be able to hurl at 
 the lawyer with a steady voice, she followed 
 Miss Betty to the drawing-room. 
 
 It was half a relief and half a disappointment 
 to find that the lawyer was quite indifferent to 
 the subject of their late contest. He over- 
 flowed with compliments ; was quite sure he 
 must have had the worst of the argument, and 
 positively dying of curiosity to hear about the 
 baby. 
 
 The little ladies were very full of the subject 
 themselves. An active search for the baby's 
 relations, conducted by the parson, the clerk, 
 the farm-bailiff, the constable, the cow-herd, 
 and several supernumeraries, had so far proved 
 quite vain. The country folk were most 
 anxious to assist, especially by word of mouth. 
 Except a small but sturdy number who had 
 seen nothing, they had all seen " tramps," but 
 unluckily no two could be got together whose 
 
32 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 accounts of the tramps themselves, of the hour 
 at which they were seen, or of the direction in 
 which they went, would tally with each other. 
 
 The little ladies were quite alive to the pos- 
 sibility that the child's parents might never be 
 traced, indeed the matter had been constantly 
 before their minds ever since the parson had 
 carried the baby to Lingborough, and laid it in 
 the arms of Thomasina, the servant. 
 
 Miss Betty had sat long before her toilette- 
 table that evening, gazing vacantly at the 
 looking-glass. Not that the reflection of the 
 eight curl-papers she had neatly twisted up was 
 conveyed to her brain. She was in a brown 
 study, during which the following thoughts 
 passed through her mind, and they all pointed 
 one way : 
 
 ^ That that fine little fellow was not to blame 
 for his people's misconduct. 
 
 That they would never be found. 
 
 That it would probably be the means of the 
 poor child's ruin, body and soul, if they were. 
 
CHILDREN INCREASE THE CARES OF LIFE. 33 
 
 ' That the master of the neighboring work- 
 house bore a bad character. 
 
 That a child costs nothing to keep — where 
 cows are kept too — for years. 
 
 That just at the age when a boy begins to eat 
 dreadfully and wear out his clothes, he is very 
 useful on a farm (though not for these reasons). 
 
 That Thomasina had taken to him. 
 
 That there need be no nonsense about it, as 
 he could be brought up in his proper station in 
 life in the kitchen and the farm-yard. 
 
 That tramps have souls. 
 
 That he would be taught to say his 
 prayers. 
 
 Miss Betty said hers, and went to bed ; but 
 all through that midsummer night the baby kept 
 her awake, or flaunted his yellow robe and crim- 
 son toadstool through her dreams. 
 
 The morning brought no change in Miss 
 Betty's views, but she felt doubtful as to how 
 her sister would receive them. Would she re- 
 gard them as foolish and unpractical, and her 
 
34 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 respect for Miss Betty's opinion be lessened 
 thenceforward ? 
 
 The fear was needless. Miss Kitty was ro- 
 mantic and imaginative. She had carried the 
 baby through his boyhood about the Ling- 
 borough fields whilst she was dressing ; and he 
 was attending her own funeral in the capacity 
 of an attached and faithful servant, in black liv- 
 ery with worsted frogs, as she sprinkled salt on 
 her buttered toast at breakfast, when she was 
 startled from this affecting day-dream by Miss 
 Betty's voice. 
 
 " Dear sister Kitty, I wish to consult you as 
 to our plans in the event of those wicked 
 people who deserted the baby not being 
 found." 
 
 The little ladies resolved that not an inkling 
 of their benevolent scheme must be betrayed to 
 the lawyer. But they dissembled awkwardly,, 
 and the tone in which they spoke of the tramp- 
 baby roused the lawyer's quick suspicions. He 
 had a real respect for the little ladies, and was 
 
BUT MITIGATE THE REMEMBRANCE OF DEATH. 35 
 
 kindly anxious to save them from their own 
 indiscretion. 
 
 " My dear ladies," said he, " I do hope your 
 benevolence — may I say your romantic benevo- 
 lence .'* — of disposition is not tempting you to 
 adopt this gipsy waif ?" 
 
 " I hope we know what is due to ourselves, and 
 to the estate — small, as it is — sir," said Miss 
 Betty, "as well as to Providence, too well to 
 attempt to raise any child, however handsome, 
 from that station of life in which he was born." 
 
 " Bless me, madam ! I never dreamed you 
 would adopt a beggar child as your heir ; but I 
 hope you mean to send it to the workhouse, if 
 the gipsy tramps it belongs to are not to be 
 found .? " 
 
 " We have not made up our minds, sir, as to 
 the course we propose to pursue," said Miss 
 Betty, with outward dignity proportioned to her 
 inward doubts. 
 
 "My dear ladies," said the lawyer anxiously, 
 " let me implore you not to be rash. To adopt 
 
36 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 a child in the most favorable circumstances is 
 the greatest of risks. But if your benevolence 
 zvill take that line, pray adopt some little boy 
 out of one of your tenants' famiUes. Even your 
 teaching will not make him brilliant, as he is 
 likely to inherit the minimum of intellectual 
 capacity ; but he will learn his catechism, prob- 
 ably grow up respectable, and possibly grateful, 
 since his forefathers have (so Miss Kitty assures 
 me) had all these virtues for generations. But 
 this baby is the child of a heathen, barbarous, 
 and wandering race. The propensities of the 
 vagabonds who have deserted him are in every 
 drop of his blood. All the parsons in the dio- 
 cese won't make a Christian of him, and when 
 (after anxieties I shudder to foresee) you flatter 
 yourselves that he is civilized, he will run away 
 and leave his shoes and stockings behind him." 
 
 "He has a soul to be saved, if he is a 
 gipsy," said Miss Kitty, hysterically. 
 
 " The soul, my dear Miss Kitty " — began 
 the lawyer, facing round upon her. 
 
COUNSEL IS IRKSOME. 37 
 
 " Don't say anything dreadful about the 
 soul, sir, I beg," said Miss Betty, firmly. 
 And then she added in a conciliatory tone, 
 " Won't you look at the little fellow, sir ? I 
 have no doubt his relations are shockino- 
 people ; but when you see his innocent little 
 face and his beautiful eyes, I think you'll say 
 yourself that if he were a duke's son he 
 couldn't be a finer child." 
 
 " My experience of babies is so limited. 
 Miss Betty," said the lawyer, ** that really — 
 if you'll excuse me — but I can quite imagine 
 him. I have before now been tempted myself 
 to adopt stray — puppies, when I have seen 
 them in the round, soft, innocent, bright-eyed 
 stage. And when they have grown up in the 
 hands of more credulous friends into lanky, 
 ill-conditioned, misconducted curs, I have con- 
 gratulated myself that I was not misled by 
 the graces of an age at which ill-breeding is 
 less apparent than later in life." 
 
 The little ladies both rose. " If you see 
 
38 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 no difference, sir," said Miss Betty in her 
 stateliest manner, " between a babe with an 
 immortal soul and the beasts that perish, it 
 is quite useless to prolong the conversation." 
 
 " Reason is apt to be useless when opposed 
 to the generous impulses of a sex so full of 
 sentiment as yours, madam," said the lawyer, 
 rising also. " Permit me to take a long fare- 
 well, since it is improbable that our friendship 
 will resume its old position until your protege 
 has — run away." 
 
 The words " long farewell " and *' old friend- 
 ship " were quite sufficient to soften wrath in 
 the tender hearts of the little ladies. But the 
 lawyer had really lost his temper, and, before 
 Miss Betty had decided how to offer the olive 
 branch without conceding her principles he 
 was gone. 
 
 The weather was warm. The little ladies 
 were heated by discussion and the parson by 
 vain scouring of the country on foot, when 
 they asked his advice upon their project, and 
 
WHEN THE MATTER IS PAST REMEDY. 
 
 39 
 
 related their conversation with the lawyer. 
 The two gentlemen had so little in common 
 that the parson felt it his duty not to let his 
 advice be prejudiced by this fact. For some 
 moments he sat silent, then he began to walk 
 
 ^>^>^- 
 
 about as if he were composing a sermon ; 
 then he stopped before the little ladies (who 
 were sitting as stiffly on the sofa as if it were 
 a pew) and spoke as if he were delivering one. 
 
40 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE 
 
 ** If you ask me, dear ladies, whether it is 
 your duty to provide for this child because 
 you found him, I say that there is no such 
 obligation. If you ask if I think it wise in 
 your own interests, and hopeful as to the boy's 
 career, I am obliged to agree with your legal 
 adviser. Vagabond ways are seldom cured in 
 one generation, and I think it is quite prob- 
 able that, after much trouble and anxiety 
 spent upon him, he may go back to a wander- 
 ing life. But, Miss Betty," continued the 
 parson in deepening tones, as he pounded 
 his left palm with his right fist for want of a 
 pulpit, " If you ask me whether I believe any 
 child of any race is born incapable of improve- 
 ment, and beyond benefit from the charities 
 we owe to each other, I should deny my faith 
 if I could say yes. I shall not, madam, con- 
 fuse the end of your connection with him 
 with the end of your training in him, even if 
 he runs away, or fancy that I see the one 
 because I see the other. I do not pretend 
 
TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY DO WE COME. 4I 
 
 to know how much evil he inherits from 
 his forefathers as accurately as our graphic 
 friend ; but I do know that he has a Father 
 Whose image is also to be found in His 
 children — not quite effaced in any of them — 
 and Whose care of this one will last when 
 yours, madam, may seem to have been in 
 vain." 
 
 As the little ladies rushed forward and each 
 shook a hand of the parson, he felt some 
 compunction for his speech. 
 
 '* I fear I am encouraging you in grave 
 indiscretion," said he. " But, indeed, my dear 
 ladies, I am quite against your project, for 
 you do not realize the anxieties and disap- 
 pointments that are before you, I am sure. 
 The child will give you infinite trouble. I 
 think he will run away. And yet I cannot 
 in good conscience say that I believe love's 
 labor must be lost. He may return to the 
 woods and wilds ; but I hope he will carry 
 something with him." 
 
42 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 " Did the reverend gentleman mean Miss 
 Betty's teaspoons ? " asked the lawyer, strok- 
 ing his long chin, when he was told what the 
 parson had said. 
 
FROM GOD, WHO IS OUR HOME. 43 
 
 BABYHOOD. — PRETTY FLOWERS. — THE 
 ROSE-COLORED TULIPS. 
 
 The matter of the baby's 
 cap disturbed the little ladies. 
 It seemed so like the begin- 
 ning of a fulfilment of the 
 lawyer's croakings. 
 
 Miss Kitty had made it. 
 She had never seen a baby 
 without a cap before, and the sight was unusual, 
 if not indecent. But Miss Kitty was a quick 
 needle-woman, and when the new cap was fairly 
 tied over the thick crop of silky black hair, 
 the baby looked so much less like Puck, and 
 so much more like the rest of the baby world, 
 that it was quite a relief. 
 
 Miss Kitty's feelings may therefore be 
 imagined when, going to the baby just after 
 
44 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 the parson's departure, she found him in open 
 rebellion against his cap. It had been tied 
 on whilst he was asleep, and his eyes were 
 no sooner opened than he commenced the 
 attack. He pulled with one little brown hand 
 and tugged with the other ; he dragged a 
 rosette over his nose and got the frills into 
 his eyes ; he worried it as a puppy worries 
 your handkerchief if you tie it round its face 
 and tell it to "look like a grandmother." At 
 last the strings gave way, and he cast it tri- 
 umphantly out of the clothes-basket which 
 served him for cradle. 
 
 Successive efforts to induce him to wear it 
 proved vain, so Thomasina said the weather 
 was warm and his hair was very thick, and she 
 parted this and brushed it, and Miss Kitty gave 
 the cap to the farm bailiff's baby, who took to it 
 as kindly as a dumpling to a pudding-cloth. 
 
 How the boy was ever kept inside his christ- 
 ening clothes, Thomasina said she did not 
 know. But when he got into the parson's arms 
 
DELIGHT AND LIBERTY. 45 
 
 he lay quite quiet, which was a good omen. 
 That he might lack no advantage, Miss Betty- 
 stood godmother for him, and the parish clerk 
 and the sexton were his godfathers. 
 
 He was named John. 
 
 "A plain, sensible name," said Miss Betty. 
 "And while we are about it," she added, "we 
 may as well choose his surname. For a sur- 
 name he must have, and the sooner it is decided 
 upon the better." 
 
 Miss Kitty had made a list of twenty- 
 seven of her favorite Christian names, which 
 Miss Betty had sternly rejected, that every- 
 thing might be plain, practical, and respectable 
 at the outset of the tramp child's career. For 
 the same reason she refused to adopt Miss 
 Kitty's suggestions for a surname. 
 
 " It's so seldom there's a chance of choosing a 
 surname for anybody, sister," said Miss Kitty, 
 " it seems a pity not to choose a pretty one." 
 
 " Sister Kitty," • said Miss Betty, " don't be 
 romantic. The boy is to be brought up in that 
 
46 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 station of life for which one syllable is ample. 
 I should have called him Smith if that had not 
 been Thomasina's name. As it is, I propose to 
 call him Broom. He was found under a bush 
 of broom, and it goes very well with John, and 
 sounds plain and respectable." 
 
 So Miss Betty bought a Bible, and on the fly- 
 leaf of it she wrote in her fine, round, gentle- 
 woman's writing — ''John Broom. With good 
 zvishes for his welfare^ temporal and eternal. 
 From a sincere friend.'' And when the inscrip- 
 tion was dry the Bible was wrapped in brown 
 paper, and put by in Thomasina's trunk till 
 John Broom should come to years of discretion. 
 
 He was slow to reach them, though in other 
 respects he grew fast. 
 
 When he began to walk he would walk bare- 
 foot. To be out of doors was his delight, but 
 on the threshold of the house he always sat 
 down and discarded his shoes and stockings. 
 Thomasina bastinadoed the soles of his feet with 
 the soles of his shoes " to teach him the use of 
 
THE SIMPLE CREED OF CHILDHOOD. 4/ 
 
 them," so she said. But Miss Kitty sighed, 
 and thought of the lawyer's prediction. 
 
 There was no blinking the fact that the child 
 was as troublesome as he was pretty. The very 
 demon of mischief danced in his black eyes, and 
 seemed to possess his feet and fingers as if with 
 quicksilver. And if, as Thomasina said, you 
 ** never knew what he would be at next," 
 you might also be pretty sure that it would be 
 something he ought to have left undone. 
 
 John Broom early developed a taste for glass 
 and crockery, and as the china cupboard was in 
 that part of the house to which he by social 
 standing also belonged, he had many chances to 
 seize upon cups, jugs, and dishes. If detected 
 with anything that he ought not to have had, it 
 was his custom to drop the forbidden toy and 
 toddle off as fast as his unpractised feet would 
 carry him. The havoc which this caused 
 amongst the glass and china was bewildering in 
 a household where tea-sets and dinner-sets had 
 passed from generation to generation, where 
 
48 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 slapdash, giddy-pated kitchenmaids never came, 
 where Miss Betty washed the best teacups in 
 the parlor, where Thomasina was more care- 
 ful than her mistress, and the breaking of a 
 single plate was a serious matter, and, if beyond 
 riveting, a misfortune. 
 
 Thomasina soon found that her charge was 
 safest, as he was happiest, out of doors. A 
 very successful device was to shut him up in 
 the drying ground, and tell him to "pick the 
 pretty flowers." John Broom preferred flowers 
 even to china cups with gilding on them. He 
 gathered nosegays of daisies and buttercups, 
 and the winning way in which he would present 
 these to the little ladies atoned, in their benev- 
 olent eyes, for many a smashed teacup. 
 
 But the tramp-baby's restless spirit was soon 
 weary of the drying-ground, and he set forth 
 one morning in search of ''fresh woods and 
 pastures new." He had seated himself on the 
 threshold to take off his shoes, when he heard 
 the sound of Thomasina's footsteps, and, hastily 
 
LIKE TUMBLED FRUIT IN GRASS. 
 
 49 
 
 staggering to his feet, toddled forth without 
 farther delay. The sky was blue above him, 
 
 the sun was shining, and the air was very sweet. 
 He ran for a bit and then tumbled, and picked 
 
50 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 himself up again, and got a fresh impetus, and 
 so on till he reached the door of the kitchen- 
 garden, which was open. It was an old-fash- 
 ioned kitchen-garden with flowers in the bor- 
 ders. There were single rose-colored tulips, 
 which had been in the garden as long as Miss 
 Betty could remember, and they had been so 
 increased by dividing the clumps that they now 
 stretched in two rich lines of color down both 
 sides of the long wall. And John Broom saw 
 them. 
 
 "Pick the pretty f'owers, love," said he, in 
 imitation of Thomasina's patronizing tone, and 
 forthwith beginning at the end, he went steadily 
 to the top of the right-hand border, mowing the 
 rose-colored tulips as he went. 
 
 Meanwhile, when Thomasina came to look 
 for him he could not be found, and when all 
 the back premises and the drying-ground had 
 been searched in vain, she gave the alarm to 
 the little ladies. 
 
 Miss Kitty's vivid imagination leaped at once 
 
ROSE-COLORED TULIPS. 
 
 51 
 
 to the conclusion that the child's vagabond re- 
 lations had fetched him away, and she became 
 rigid with alarm. But Miss Betty rushed out 
 into the shrubbery, and Miss Kitty took a whiff 
 of her vinaigrette and followed her. 
 
 ^^Ki 
 
 When they came at last to the kitchen- 
 garden, Miss Betty's grief for the loss of John 
 Broom did not prevent her observing that 
 there was something odd about the borders, and 
 
52 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 when she got to the top, and found that all the 
 tulips had been picked from one side, she sank 
 down on the roller which happened to be lying 
 beside her. 
 
 And John Broom staggered up to her, and 
 crying, ''For 'oo, Miss Betty," fell headlong 
 with a sheaf of rose-colored tulips into her lap. 
 
 As he did not offer any to Miss Kitty, her 
 better judgment was not warped, and she said, 
 "You must slap him, sister Betty." 
 
 " Put out your hand, John Broom," said Miss 
 Betty, much agitated. 
 
 And John Broom, who was quite composed, 
 put out both his little grubby paws so trustfully 
 that Miss Betty had not the heart to strike him. 
 But she scolded him, " Naughty boy ! " and she 
 pointed to the tulips and shook her head. John 
 Broom looked thoughtfully at them, and shook 
 his. 
 
 " Naughty boy ! " repeated Miss Betty, and 
 she added in very impressive tones, "John 
 Broom's a very naughty boy ! " 
 
A SUNSHINY WORLD. 53 
 
 After which she took him to Thomasina, and 
 Miss Kitty collected the rose-colored tulips and 
 put them into water in the best old china punch- 
 bowl. 
 
 In the course of the afternoon she peeped 
 into the kitchen, where John Broom sat on the 
 floor, under the window, gazing thoughtfully up 
 into the sky. 
 
 "As good as gold, bless his little heart!" 
 murmured Miss Kitty. For as his feet were 
 tucked under him, she did not know that he had 
 just put his shoes and stockings into the pig- 
 tub, into which he all but fell himself from the 
 exertion. He did not hear Miss Kitty, and 
 thought on. He wanted to be out again, and he 
 had a tantalizing remembrance of the ease with 
 which the tender juicy stalks of the tulips went 
 snap, snap, in that new place of amusement he 
 had discovered. Thomasina looked into the 
 kitchen and went away again. When she had 
 gone, John Broom went away also. 
 
 He went both faster and steadier on his 
 
54 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 bare feet. And when he got into the kitchen- 
 garden, it recalled Miss Betty to his mind. 
 And he shook his head, and said, '' Naughty 
 boy ! " And then he went up to the left-hand 
 border, mowing the tulips as he went ; after 
 which he trotted home, and met Thomasina at 
 the back door. And he hugged the sheaf of 
 rose-colored tulips in his arms, and said, "John 
 Broom a very naughty boy ! " 
 
 Thomasina was not sentimental, and she 
 slapped him well — his hands for picking the 
 tulips, and his feet for going bare-foot. 
 
 But his feet had to be slapped with Thomas- 
 ina's slipper, for his, own shoes could not be 
 found. 
 
CHILDREN ARE WHAT THEY ARE MADE. 55 
 
 EDUCATION. — FIRESIDE TALES. 
 
 In spite of all his pranks, John Broom did 
 not lose the favor of his friends. Thomasina 
 spoiled him, and Miss Betty and Miss Kitty 
 tried not to do so. 
 
 The parson had said, " Treat the child fairly. 
 Bring him up as he will have to live hereafter. 
 Don't make him half pet and half servant." 
 And following this advice, and her own resolve 
 that there should be " no nonsense " in the 
 matter. Miss Betty had made it a rule that 
 he should not be admitted to the parlor. It 
 bore more heavily on the tender hearts of the 
 little ladies than on the light heart of John 
 Broom, and led to their waylaying him in the 
 passages and gardens with little gifts, unknown 
 to each other. And when Miss Kitty kissed 
 his newly-washed cheeks, and pronounced them 
 "like ripe russets," Miss Betty murmured, "Be 
 
$6 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 judicious, sister Kitty"; and Miss Kitty would 
 correct any possible ill effects by saying, " Now 
 make your bow to your betters, John Broom, 
 and say, 'Thank you, ma'am!'" which was 
 accomplished by the child's giving a tug to 
 the forelock of his thick black hair, with a 
 world of mischief in his eyes. 
 
 When he was old enough, the little ladies 
 sent him to the village school. 
 
 The total failure of their hopes for his edu- 
 cation was not the smallest of the disappoint- 
 ments Miss Betty and Miss Kitty endured on 
 his behalf. The quarrel with the lawyer had 
 been made up long ago, and though there was 
 always a touch of raillery in his inquiries after 
 "the young gipsy," he had once said, "If he 
 turns out anything of a genius at school, I 
 might find a place for him in the office, by- 
 and-by." The lawyer was kind-hearted in his 
 own fashion, and on this hint Miss Kitty built 
 up hopes, which unhappily were met by no 
 responsive ambition in John Broom. 
 
IT IS ALWAYS HOLIDAY TIME WITH IDLERS. 5/ 
 
 As to his fitness to be an errand boy, he 
 could not carry a message from the kitchen 
 to the cowhouse without stopping by the way 
 to play with the yard-dog, and a hedgehog in 
 the path would probably have led him astray, 
 if Thomasina had had a fit and he had been 
 despatched for the doctor. 
 
 During school hours he spent most of his 
 time under the fool's-cap when he was not 
 playing truant. With his schoolmates he was 
 good friends. If he was seldom out of mis- 
 chief, he was seldom out of temper. He could 
 beat any boy at a foot race (without shoes) ; 
 he knew the notes and nests of every bird 
 that sang, and whatever an old pocket-knife 
 is capable of, that John Broom could and would 
 do with it for his fellows. 
 
 Miss Betty had herself tried to teach him 
 to read, and she continued to be responsible 
 for his religious instruction. She had hoped 
 to stir up his industry by showing him the 
 Bible, and promising that when he could read 
 
58 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 it he should have it for his "very own." But 
 he either could not or would not apply him- 
 self, so the prize lay unearned in Thomasina's 
 trunk. But he would listen for any length 
 of time to Scripture stories, if they were read 
 or told to him, especially to the history of 
 Elisha, and the adventures of the Judges. 
 
 Indeed, since he could no longer be shut 
 up in the drying-ground, Thomasina had found 
 that he was never so happy and so safe as 
 when he was listening to tales, and many a 
 long winter evening he lay idle on the kitchen 
 hearth, with his head on the sheep dog, whilst 
 the more industrious Thomasina plied her knit- 
 ting-needles, as she sat in the ingle-nook, with 
 the flickering firelight playing among the plaits 
 of her large cap, and tojd tales of the country side. 
 
 Not that John Broom was her only hearer. 
 Annie ''the lass" sat by the hearth also, and 
 Thomasina took care that she did not '' sit 
 with her hands before her." And a httle far- 
 ther away sat the cowherd. 
 
SPRITES AND GOBLINS. 59 
 
 He had a sleeping-room above the barn, and 
 took his meals in the house. By Miss Betty's 
 desire he always went into family prayers after 
 supper, when he sat as close as possible to the 
 door, under an uncomfortable consciousness 
 that Thomasina did not think his boots clean 
 enough for the occasion, and would find some- 
 thing to pick off the carpet as she followed him 
 out, however hardly he might have used the 
 door-scraper beforehand. 
 
 It might be a difficult matter to decide which 
 he liked best, beer or John Broom. But next 
 to these he liked Thomasina's stories. 
 
 Thomasina was kind to him. With all his 
 failings and the dirt on his boots, she liked him 
 better than the farm-bailiff. The farm-bailiff 
 was thrifty and sensible and faithful, and 
 Thomasina was faithful and sensible and 
 thrifty, and they each had a tendency to claim 
 the monopoly of those virtues. Notable people 
 complain, very properly, of thriftless and untidy 
 ones, but they sometimes agree better with 
 
60 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 them than with rival notabilities. And so 
 Thomasina's broad face beamed benevolently 
 as she bid the cowherd " draw up " to the fire, 
 and he who (like Thomasina) was a native of 
 the country, would confirm the marvels she 
 related, with a proper pride in the wonderful 
 district to which they both belonged. 
 
 He would help her out sometimes with names 
 and dates in a local biography. By his own 
 account he knew the man who was murdered 
 at the inn in the Black Valley so intimately 
 that it turned Annie the lass as white as a 
 dish-cloth to sit beside him. If Thomasina 
 said that folk were yet alive who had seen the 
 little green men dance in Dawborough Croft, 
 the cowherd would smack his knees and cry, 
 " Scores on 'em ! " And when she whispered 
 of the white figure which stood at the cross 
 roads after midnight, he testified to having seen 
 it himself — tall beyond mortal height, and 
 pointing four ways at once. He had a legend 
 of his own too, which Thotnasina sometimes 
 
THE LUBBER FIEND. 6l 
 
 gave him the chance of telling, of how he was 
 followed home one moonlight night by a black 
 Something as big as a young calf, which 
 "wimmled and wammled" around him till he 
 fell senseless into the ditch, and being found 
 there by the farm-bailiff on his return from 
 market, was unjustly accused of the vice of 
 intoxication. 
 
 *' Fault-finders should be free of flaws," 
 Thomasina would say with a prim chin. She 
 /lad seen the farm-bailiff himself "the worse" 
 for more than his supper beer. 
 
 But there was one history which Thomasina 
 was always loth to relate, and it was that which 
 both John Broom and the cowherd especially 
 preferred — the history of Lob Lie-by-the-fire. 
 
 Thomasina had a feeling (which was shared 
 •by Annie the lass) that* it was better not to talk 
 of ''anything" peculiar to the house in which 
 you are living. One's neighbors' ghosts and 
 bogles are another matter. 
 
 But to John Broom and the cowherd no sub- 
 
62 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 ject was SO interesting as that of the Lubber- 
 fiend. The cowherd sighed to think of the 
 good old times when a man might sleep on in 
 spite of cocks, and the stables be cleaner, and 
 the beasts better tended than if he had been up 
 with the lark. And John Broom's curiosity 
 was never quenched about the rough, hairy 
 Good-fellow who worked at night that others 
 might be idle by day, and who was sometimes 
 caught at his hard-earned nap, lying, "like a 
 great hurgin bear," where, the boy loved to 
 lie himself, before the fire, on this very hearth. 
 
 Why and where he had gone, Thomasina 
 could not tell. She had heard that he had 
 originally come from some other household, 
 where he had been offended. But whether he 
 had gone elsewhere when he forsook Ling- 
 borough, or whether " such things had left the 
 country " for good, she did not pretend to say. 
 
 And when she had told, for the third or fourth 
 time, how his porridge was put into a corner of 
 th^cowhouse for him overnight, and how he had 
 
THE FARM-BAILIFF. 63 
 
 been often overheard at his work, but rarely 
 seen, a^d then only lying before the fire. Miss 
 Betty would ring for prayers, and Thomasina 
 would fold up her knitting and lead the way, 
 followed by Annie the lass, whose nerves John 
 Broom would startle by treading on her heels, 
 the rear being brought up by the cowherd, look- 
 ing hopelessly at his boots. 
 
 Miss Betty and Miss Kitty did really deny 
 themselves the indulgence of being indulgent, 
 and treated John Broom on principles, and for 
 his good. But they did so in their own tremu- 
 lous and spasmodic way, and got little credit for 
 it. Thomasina, on the other hand, spoiled him 
 with such a masterful managing air, and so much 
 sensible talk, that no one would have thought 
 that the only system she followed was to con- 
 ceal his misdemeanors, and to stand between 
 him and the just wrath of the farm -bailiff. 
 
 The farm-bailiff, or grieve, as he liked to call 
 himself, was a Scotchman, with a hard-featured 
 face (which he washed on the Sabbath), a harsh 
 
64 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 voice, a good heart rather deeper down in his 
 body than is usual, and a shrewd, money-'getting 
 head, with a speckled straw hat on the top of it. 
 No one could venture to imagine when that hat 
 was new, or how long ago it was that the farm- 
 bailiff went to the expense of purchasing those 
 work-day clothes. But the dirt on his face and 
 neck was an orderly accumulation, such as 
 gathers on walls, oil-paintings, and other places 
 to which soap is not habitually applied ; it was 
 not a matter of spills and splashes, like the dirt 
 John Broom disgraced himself with. And his 
 clothes, if old, fitted neatly about him ; they 
 never suggested raggedness, which was the nor- 
 mal condition of the tramp-boy's jackets. They 
 only looked as if he had been born (and occa- 
 sionally buried) in them. It is needful to make 
 this distinction, that the good man may not be 
 accused of inconsistency in the peculiar vexation 
 which John Broom's disorderly appearance 
 caused him. 
 
 In truth. Miss Betty's proUg^ had reached the 
 
LIFE IS NOT ONLY PLAY. 6$ 
 
 age at which he was to *'eat dreadfully, wear 
 out his clothes, and be useful on the farm ; " and 
 the last condition was quite unfulfilled. At 
 eleven years old he could not be trusted to 
 scare birds, and at half that age the farm-bailiff's 
 eldest child could drive cattle. 
 
 *'And no' just ruin the leddies in new coats 
 and compliments, either, like some ne'er-do- 
 weels," added the farm-bailiff, who had heard 
 with a jealous ear of sixpences given by Miss 
 Betty and Miss Kitty to their wasteful favorite. 
 
 When the eleventh anniversary of John 
 Broom's discovery was passed, and his character 
 at school gave no hopes of his ever qualifying 
 himself to serve the lawyer, it was resolved that 
 — ''idleness being the mother of mischief," he 
 should be put under the care of the farm-bailiff, 
 to do such odd jobs about the place as might be 
 suited to his capacity and love of outdoor life. 
 And now John Broom's troubles began. By 
 fair means or foul, with here an hour's weeding 
 and there a day's bird scaring, and with errands 
 
66 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 perpetual, the farm-bailiff contrived to "get 
 some work out of" the idle little urchin. His 
 speckled hat and grim face seemed to be every- 
 where, and always to pop up when John Broom 
 began to play. 
 
 They lived "at daggers drawn." I am sorry 
 to say that John Broom's fitful industry was still 
 kept for his own fancies. To climb trees, to 
 run races with the sheep dog, to cut grotesque 
 sticks, gather hedge fruits, explore a bog, or 
 make new friends among beasts and birds — at 
 such matters he would labor with feverish zeal. 
 But so far from trying to cure himself of his 
 indolence about daily drudgery, he found a new 
 and pleasant excitement in thwarting the farm- 
 bailiff at every turn. 
 
 It would not sound dignified to say that the 
 farm-bailiff took pleasure in thwarting John 
 Broom. But he certainly did not show his 
 satisfaction when the boy did do his work 
 properly. Perhaps he thought that praise is 
 not good for young people ; and the child did 
 
THE WORLD IS NOT OUR HOLIDAY. 
 
 67 
 
 not often give him the chance of trying. Of 
 blame he was free enough. Not a good scold- 
 ing to clear the air, such as Thomasina would 
 
 ^^v 
 
 give to Annie the lass, but his slow, caustic 
 tongue was always growling, like muttered 
 thunder, over John Broom's incorrigible head. 
 
68 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 He had never approved of the tramp-child, 
 who had the overwhelming drawbacks of hav- 
 ing no pedigree and of being a bad bargain as 
 to expense. This was not altogether John 
 Broom's fault, but with his personal failings 
 the farm-bailiff had even less sympathy. It 
 had been hinted that he was born in the speck- 
 led hat, and whether this were so or not, 
 he certainly had worn an old head whilst his 
 shoulders were still young, and could not 
 remember the time when he wished to waste 
 his energies on anything that did not earn or 
 at least save something. 
 
 Once only did anything like approval of the 
 lad escape his lips. 
 
 Miss Betty's uncle's second cousin had re- 
 turned from foreign lands with a good fortune 
 and several white cockatoos. He kept the 
 fortune himself, but he gave the cockatoos to 
 his friends, and he sent one of them to the 
 little ladies of Lingborough. 
 
 He was a lovely creature (the cockatoo, not 
 
GLITTERING EYES. 69 
 
 the cousin, who was plain), and John Broom's 
 admiration of him was boundless. He gazed 
 at the sulphur-colored crest, the pure white 
 wings with their deeper-tinted lining, and even 
 the beak and the fierce round eyes, as he had 
 gazed at the broom-bush in his babyhood, with 
 insatiable delight. 
 
 The cousin did things handsomely. He had 
 had a ring put round one of the cockatoo's 
 ankles, with a bright steel chain attached and 
 a fastener to secure it to the perch. The cock- 
 atoo was sent in the cage by coach, and a perch, 
 made of foreign wood, followed by the carrier. 
 
 Miss Betty and Miss Kitty were delighted 
 both with the cockatoo and the perch, but they 
 were a good deal troubled as to how to fasten 
 the two together. There was a neat little ring 
 on the perch, and the cockatoo's chain was 
 quite complete, and he evidently wanted to get 
 out, for he shook the walls of his cage in his 
 gambols. But he put up his crest and snapped 
 when any one approached, in a manner so 
 
70 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 alarming that Annie the lass shut herself up 
 in the dairy, and the farm-bailiff turned his 
 speckled hat in his hands, and gave cautious 
 counsel from a safe distance. 
 
 "How he flaps!" cried Miss Betty. "I'm 
 afraid he has a very vicious temper." 
 
 " He only wants to get out. Miss Betty," said 
 John Broom. " He'd be all right with his 
 perch, and I think I can get him on it." 
 
 " Now Heaven save us from the sin o' pre- 
 sumption ! " cried the farm-bailiff, and putting 
 on the speckled hat, he added, slowly: "I'm 
 thinking, John Broom, that if ye're engaged wi' 
 the leddies this morning it'll be time I turned 
 my hand to singling these few turnips ye've 
 been thinking about the week past." 
 
 On which he departed, and John Broom 
 pressed the little ladies to leave him alone with 
 the bird. 
 
 " We shouldn't like to leave you alone with a 
 wild creature like that," said Miss Betty. 
 
 "He's just frightened on ye, Miss Betty. 
 
GENERAL NATURE S DEEP DELIGHT. /I 
 
 He'll be like a lamb when you're gone," urged 
 John Broom. 
 
 "Besides, we should like to see you do it," 
 said Miss Kitty. 
 
 "You can look in through the window, miss. 
 I must fasten the door, or he'll be out." 
 
 "I should never forgive myself if he hurt 
 you, John," said Miss Betty, irresolutely, for 
 she was very anxious to have the cockatoo and 
 perch in full glory in the parlor. 
 
 " He'll none hurt me, miss," said John, with 
 a cheerful smile on his rosy face. "I likes him, 
 and he'll like me." 
 
 This settled the matter. John was left with 
 the cockatoo. He locked the door, and the 
 little ladies went into the garden and peeped 
 through the window. 
 
 They saw John Broom approach the cage, on 
 which the cockatoo put up his crest, opened his 
 beak slowly, and snarled, and Miss Betty tapped 
 on the window and shook her black satin work- 
 bag. 
 
^2 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 "Don't go near him!" she cried. But John 
 Broom paid no attention. 
 
 "What are you putting up that top-knot of 
 yours at me for.?" said he to the cockatoo. 
 " Don't ye know your own friends .? I'm 
 going to let ye out, I am. You're going on to 
 your perch, you are." 
 
 "Eh, but you're a bonny creature!" he 
 added, as the cockatoo filled the cage with snow 
 and sulphur fiutterings. 
 
 " Keep away, keep away 1 " screamed the 
 little ladies, playing a duet on the window 
 panes. 
 
 " Out with you!" said John Broom, as he 
 unfastened the cage door. 
 
 And just when Miss Betty had run round, 
 and as she shouted through the keyhole, " Open 
 the door, John Broom. We've changed our 
 minds. We've decided to keep it in its cage," 
 the cockatoo strode solemnly forth on his eight 
 long toes. 
 
 " Pretty Cocky ! " said he. 
 
CONTRADICTIONS. 
 
 73 
 
 When Miss Betty got back to the window, 
 John Broom had just made an injudicious grab 
 
 at the steel chain, on which Pretty Cocky flew 
 fiercely at him, and John, burying his face in 
 
74 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 his arms, received the attack on his thick poll, 
 laughing into his sleeves and holding fast to the 
 chain, whilst the cockatoo and the little ladies 
 screamed against each other. 
 
 " It'll break your leg — you'll tear its eyes 
 out!" cried Miss Kitty. 
 
 *' Miss Kitty means that you'll break its leg, 
 and it will tear your eyes out," Miss Betty 
 explained through the glass. " John Broom ! 
 Come away ! Lock it in ! Let it go ! " 
 
 But Cocky was now waddling solemnly round 
 the room, and John Broom was creeping after 
 him, with the end of the chain in one hand, and 
 the perch in the other, and in a moment more 
 he had joined the chain and the ring, and just 
 as Miss Betty was about to send for the con- 
 stable and have the door broken open. Cocky 
 — driven into a corner — clutched his perch 
 and was raised triumphantly to his place in the 
 bow-window. 
 
 He was now a parlor pet, and John Broom 
 saw little of him. This vexed him, for he had 
 
CONQUERED ! 75 
 
 taken a passionate liking for the bird. The 
 little ladies rewarded him well for his skill, but 
 this brought him no favor from the farm-bailiff, 
 and matters went on as ill as before. 
 
 One .day the cockatoo got his chain en- 
 tangled, and Miss Kitty promptly advanced to 
 put it right. She had unfastened that end 
 which secured it to the perch, when Cocky, 
 who had been watching the proceedings with 
 much interest, dabbed at her with his beak. 
 Miss Kitty fled, but with great presence of 
 mind shut the door after her. She forgot, 
 however, that the window was open, in front of 
 which stood the cockatoo scanning the summer 
 sky with his fierce eyes, and flapping himself in 
 the breeze. 
 
 And just as the little ladies ran into the 
 garden, and Miss Kitty was saying, "One 
 comfort is, sister Betty, that it's quite safe in 
 the room, till we can think what to do next," 
 he bowed his yellow crest, spread his noble 
 wings, and sailed out into the aether. 
 
^6 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 In ten minutes the whole able-bodied popula- 
 tion of the place was in the grounds of Ling- 
 borough, including the farm-bailiff. 
 
 The cockatoo was on the top of a fir-tree, 
 and a fragment of the chain was with him, for 
 he had broken it, and below on the lawn stood 
 the little ladies, who, with the unfailing courage 
 of women in a hopeless cause, were trying to 
 dislodge him by waving their pocket-handker- 
 chiefs and crying "sh!" 
 
 He looked composedly down out of one eye 
 for some time, and then he began to move. 
 
 "I think it's coming down now," said Miss 
 Kitty. 
 
 But in a quarter of a minute. Cocky had 
 sailed a quarter of a mile, and was rocking 
 himself on the top of an old willow-tree. And 
 at this moment John Broom joined the crowd 
 which followed him. 
 
 " I'm thinking he's got his chain fast," said 
 the farm-bailiff; *'if onybody that understood 
 the beastie daured to get near him — " 
 
ON THE TREE TOP. 7/ 
 
 " I'll get him," said John Broom, casting 
 down his hat. 
 
 "Ye'll get your neck thrawed," said the farm- 
 bailiff. 
 
 " We won't hear of it," said the little ladies. 
 
 But to their horror, John Broom kicked off his 
 shoes, after which he spat upon his hands (a 
 shock which Miss Kitty thought she never 
 could have survived), and away he went up the 
 willow. 
 
 It was not an easy tree to climb, and he had 
 one or two narrow escapes, which kept the crowd 
 breathless, but he shook the hair from his eyes, 
 moistened his hands afresh, and went on. The 
 farm-bailiff's far-away heart was stirred. No 
 Scotchman is insensible to gallantry. And 
 courage is the only thing a '' canny " Scot can 
 bear to see expended without return. 
 
 "John Broom," screamed Miss Betty, "come 
 down ! I order, I command you to come 
 down." 
 
 The farm-bailiff drew his speckled hat for- 
 
yS LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE, 
 
 ward to shade his upward gaze, and folded 
 his arms. 
 
 " Dinna call on him, leddies," he said, speak- 
 ing more quickly than usual. '' Dinna mak 
 him turn his head. Steady, lad ! Grip wi' 
 your feet. Spit on your pawms, man." 
 
 Once the boy trod on a rotten branch, and as 
 he drew back his foot, and it came crashing 
 down, the farm-bailiff set his teeth, and Miss 
 Kitty fainted in Thomasina's arms. 
 
 *' I'll reward anyone who'll fetch him down," 
 sobbed Miss Betty. But John Broom seated 
 himself on the same branch as the cockatoo, 
 and undid the chain and prepared his hands for 
 the downward journey. 
 
 " You've got a rare perch, this time," said he. 
 And Pretty Cocky crept towards him, and 
 rubbed its head against him and chuckled with 
 joy. 
 
 What dreams of liberty in the tree tops, with 
 John Broom for a playfellow, passed through 
 his crested head, who shall say } But when he 
 
'Steady, ladl Grip \vi' your teet. 
 
COURAGE MOUNTETH WITH OCCASION. 79 
 
 found that his friend meant to take him pris- 
 oner, he became very angry and much alarmed. 
 And when John Broom grasped him by both 
 legs and began to descend, Cocky pecked 
 him vigorously. But the boy held the back 
 of his head towards him, and went steadily 
 down. 
 
 '' Weel done ! " roared the farm-bailiff. 
 " Gently, lad ! Gude save us ! ha'e a care o' 
 yoursen. That's weel. Keep your pow at him. 
 Dinna let the beast get to your een." 
 
 But when John Broom was so near the 
 ground as to be safe, the farm-bailiff turned 
 wrathfully upon his son, who had been gazing 
 open-mouthed at the sight which had so inter- 
 estjpd his father. 
 
 " Ye look weel standing gawping here, before 
 the leddies," said he, ** wasting the precious 
 hours, and bringing your father's gray hairs wi' 
 sorrow to the grave ; and John Broom yonder 
 shaming ye, and you not so much as thinking 
 to fetch the perch for him, ye lazy loon. Away 
 
80 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 wi' ye and get it, before I lay a stick about your 
 shoulders." 
 
 And when his son had gone for the perch, 
 and John Broom was safely on the ground, 
 laughing, bleeding, and triumphant, the farm- 
 bailiff said, — 
 
 "Ye're a bauld chiel, John Broom, I'll say 
 that for ye." 
 
RATHER BEAR THOSE ILLS WE HAVE. 8 
 
 INTO THE MIST. 
 
 Unfortunately the favorable impression pro- 
 duced by '' the gipsy lad's " daring soon passed 
 from the farm-bailiff's mind. It was partly 
 effaced by the old jealousy of the little ladies' 
 favor. Miss Betty gave the boy no less than 
 four silver shillings, and he ungraciously refused 
 to let the farm-bailiff place them in a savings 
 bank for him. 
 
 Matters got from bad to worse. The farming 
 man was not the only one who was jealous, and 
 John Broom himself was as idle and restless as 
 ever. Though, if he had listened respectfully 
 to the Scotchman's counsels, or shown any dis- 
 position to look up to and be guided by him, 
 much might have been overlooked. But he 
 made fun of him and made a friend of the cow- 
 herd. And this latter most manifest token of 
 
82 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 low breeding vexed the respectable taste of the 
 farm-bailiff. 
 
 John Broom had his own grievances too, and 
 he brooded over them. He thought the little 
 ladies had given him over to the farm-bailiff, 
 because they had ceased to care for him, and 
 that the farm-bailiff was prejudiced against him 
 beyond any hope of propitiation. The village 
 folk taunted him, too, with being an outcast, and 
 called him Gipsy John, and this maddened him. 
 Then he would creep into the cowhouse and 
 lie in the straw against the white cow's warm 
 back, and ^f or a few of Miss Betty's coppers, to 
 spend in beer or tobacco, the cowherd would 
 hide him from the farm-bailiff and tell him 
 countryside tales. To Thomasina's stories of 
 ghosts and gossips, he would add strange tales 
 of smugglers on the near-lying coast, and as 
 John Broom listened, his restless blood rebelled 
 more and more against the sour sneers and dry 
 drudgery that he got from the farm-bailiff. 
 
 Nor were sneers the sharpest punishment his 
 
THAN FLY TO OTHERS. 
 
 83 
 
 misdemeanors earned. The farm-bailiff's stick 
 was thick and his arm was strong, and he had 
 a tendency to beUeve that if a flogging was 
 good for a boy, the more he had of it the better 
 it would be for him. 
 
 .-V 
 
 And John Broom, who never let a cry escape 
 him at the time, would steal away afterwards 
 and sob out his grief into the long soft coat of 
 the sympathizing sheep dog. 
 
 Unfortunately he never tried the effect of 
 
84 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 deserving better treatment as a remedy for his 
 woes. The parson's good advice and Miss 
 Betty's entreaties were alike in vain. He was 
 ungrateful even to Thomasina. The little 
 ladies sighed and thought of the lawyer. And 
 the parson preached patience. 
 
 "Cocky has been tamed," said Miss Kitty, 
 thoughtfully, "perhaps John Broom will get 
 steadier by-and-by." 
 
 " It seems a pity we can't chain him to a 
 perch. Miss Kitty," laughed the parson; "he 
 would be safe then, at any rate." 
 
 Miss Betty said afterwards that it did seem 
 so remarkable that the parson should have 
 made this particular joke on this particular 
 night — the night when John Broom did not 
 come home. 
 
 He had played truant all day. The farm- 
 bailiff had wanted him, and he had kept out of 
 the way. 
 
 The wind was from the east, and a white 
 mist rolled in from the sea, bringing a strange 
 
THE INFINITE MAIN. 85 
 
 invigorating* smell, and making your lips 
 clammy with salt. It made John Broom's heart 
 beat faster, and filled his head with dreams of 
 ships and smugglers, and rocking masts higher 
 than the willow-tree, and winds wilder than this 
 wind, and dancing waves. 
 
 Then something loomed through the fog. It 
 was the farm-bailiff's speckled hat. John Broom 
 hesitated — the thick stick became visible. 
 
 Then a cloud rolled between them, and the 
 child turned, and ran, and ran, and ran, coast- 
 wards, into the sea mist. 
 
S6 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 THE SEA. — THE ONE-EYED SAILOR. — THE 
 OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. 
 
 John Broom was footsore when he reached 
 the coast, but that keen, Hfe-giving smell had 
 drawn him on and held him up. The fog had 
 cleared off, and he strained his black eyes 
 through the darkness to see the sea. 
 
 He had never seen it — that other world 
 within this,' on which one lived out of doors, 
 and climbed about all day, and no one blamed 
 him. 
 
 When he did see it, he thought he had got to 
 the end of the world. If the edge ojf the cliff 
 were not the end, he could not make out where 
 the sky began ; and if that darkness were the 
 sea, the sea was full of stars. 
 
 But this was because the sea was quiet and 
 reflected the color of the night sky, and the 
 
THE ONE-EYED SAILOR. 8/ 
 
 stars were the lights of the herring-boats twink- 
 ling in the bay. 
 
 When he got down by the water he saw the 
 vessels lying alongside, and they were dirtier 
 than he had supposed. But he did not lose 
 heart, and remembering, from the cowherd's 
 tales, that people who cannot pay for their pas- 
 sage must either work it out or hide themselves 
 on board ship, he took the easier alternative, 
 and got on to the first vessel which had a plank 
 to the quay, and hid himself under some tar- 
 paulin on the deck. 
 
 The vessel was a collier bound for London, 
 and she sailed with the morning tide. 
 
 When he was found out he was not ill-treated. 
 Indeed, the rough skipper offered to take him 
 home again on his return voyage. He would 
 have liked to go, but pride withheld him, and 
 homesickness had not yet eaten into his very 
 soul. Then an old sailor with one eye (but that 
 a sly one) met him, and told him tales more 
 wonderful than the cowherd's. And with him 
 
88 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 he shipped as cabin-boy, on a vessel bound for 
 the other side of the world. 
 
 ***** 
 
 A great many sins bring their own punish- 
 ment in this life pretty clearly, and sometimes 
 pretty closely ; but few more directly or more 
 bitterly than rebellion against the duties, and 
 ingratitude for the blessings of home. 
 
 There was no playing truant on board ship ; 
 and as to the master poor John Broom served 
 now, his cruelty made the memory of the farm- 
 bailiff a memory of tenderness and gentleness 
 and indulgence. Till he was half-naked and 
 half-starved, and had only short snatches of 
 sleep in hard corners, it had never struck him 
 that when one has got good food and clothes, 
 and sound sleep in a kindly home, he has got 
 more than many people, and enough to be 
 thankful for. 
 
 He did everything he was told now as fast as 
 he could do it, in fear for his life. The one- 
 eyed sailor had told him that the captain always 
 
THE ONE-EYED SAILOR. 
 
 89 
 
 took orphans and poor friendless lads to be his 
 cabin-boys, and John Broom thought what a 
 nice kind man he 
 must be, and how 
 different from the 
 farm -bail iff, who 
 thought nobody 
 could be trust- 
 worthy unless he 
 could show parents 
 and grand-parents, 
 and cousins to the 
 sixth degree. But 
 after they had 
 sailed, when John 
 Broom felt very 
 ill, and asked the 
 one-eyed sailor 
 where he was to 
 sleep, the one-eyed 
 sailor pleasantly replied that if he hadn't brought 
 a four-post bed in his pocket he must sleep where 
 
90 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 he could, for that all the other cabin-boys were 
 sleeping, in Davy's Locker, and couldn't be 
 disturbed. And it was not till John Broom had 
 learned ship's language that he found out that 
 Davy's Locker meant the deep, and that the 
 other cabin-boys were dead. ''And as they'd 
 nobody belonging to 'em, no hearts were 
 broke," added the sailor, winking with his one 
 eye. 
 
 John Broom slept standing sometimes for 
 weariness, but he did not sleep in Davy's 
 Locker. Young a^ he was he had dauntless 
 courage, a careless hopeful heart, and a tough 
 little body ; and that strong, life-giving sea 
 smell bore him up instead of food, and he got to 
 the other side of the world. 
 
 Why he did not stay there, why he did not 
 run away into the wilderness to find at least 
 some easier death than to have his bones 
 broken by the cruel captain, he often wondered 
 afterwards. He was so much quicker and 
 braver than the boys they commonly got, that 
 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD. 9I 
 
 the old sailor kept a sharp watch over him with 
 his one eye whilst they were ashore ; but one 
 day he was too drunk to see out of it, and John 
 Broom ran away. 
 
 It was Christmas Day, and so hot that he 
 could not run far, for he was at the other side 
 of the world, where things are upside down, 
 and he sat by the roadside on the outskirts of 
 the city ; and as he sat, with his thin, brown 
 face resting on his hands, a familiar voice 
 beside him said, " Pretty Cocky ! " and looking 
 up he saw a man with several cages of birds. 
 The speaker was a cockatoo of the most 
 exquisite shades of cream-color, salmon, and 
 rose, and he had a rose-colored crest. But 
 lovely as he was, John Broom's eyes were on 
 another cage, where, silent, solemn, and sulky, 
 sat a big white one with sulphur-colored trim- 
 mings and fierce black eyes ; and he was so like 
 Miss Betty's pet, that the poor child's heart 
 bounded as if a hand had been held out to him 
 from home. 
 
92 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 *' If you let him get at you, you'll not do it a 
 second time, mate," said the man. " He's the 
 nastiest tempered beast I ever saw. I'd have 
 wrung his neck long ago if he hadn't such a fine 
 coat." 
 
 But John Broom said, as he had said before, 
 "I like him, and he'll like me." 
 
 When the cockatoo bit his finger to the bone, 
 the man roared with laughter, but John Broom 
 did not draw his hand away. He kept it still 
 at the bird's beak, and with the other he gently 
 scratched him under the crest and wings. And 
 when the white cockatoo began to stretch out 
 his eight long toes, as cats clutch with their 
 claws from pleasure, and chuckled, and sighed, 
 and bit softly without hurting, and laid his head 
 against the bars till his snow and sulphur 
 feathers touched John Broom's black locks, the 
 man was amazed. 
 
 "Look here, mate," said he, "you've the 
 tri6k with birds and no mistake. I'll sell you 
 this one cheap, and you'll be able to sell him dear." 
 
THERE S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. 
 
 93 
 
 . " I've not a penny in the world," said John 
 Broom. * 
 
 "You do look cleaned out, too," said the 
 
 man, scanning him from head to foot. *' I tell 
 you what, you shall come with me a bit and tame 
 the birds, and I'll find you something to eat." 
 
94 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 Ten minutes before, John Broom would have 
 jumped at** this offer, but now he refused it. 
 The sight of the cockatoo had brought back 
 the fever of homesickness in all its fierceness. 
 He couldn't stay out here. He would dare 
 anything, do anything, to see the hills about 
 Lingborough once more before he died ; and 
 even if he did not live to see them, he 
 might live to sleep in that part of Davy's 
 Locker which should rock him on the shores of 
 home. 
 
 The man gave him a shilling for fastening a 
 ring and chain on to the Cocky's ankle, and 
 with this he got the best dinner he had eaten 
 since he lost sight of the farm-bailiff's speckled 
 hat in the mist. 
 
 And then he went back to the one-eyed 
 sailor, and shipped as cabin-boy again for the 
 homeward voyage. 
 
NIGHT BRINGS THE CROWS HOME. 95 
 
 THE HIGHLANDER. — BARRACK LIFE. — 
 THE GREAT CURSE.— JOHN BROOM'S 
 MONEY-BOX. 
 
 When John Broom did get home he did not 
 go to sea again. He lived from hand to mouth 
 in the seaport town, and slept, as he was well 
 accustomed to sleep, in holes and corners. 
 
 Every day and every night, through the long 
 months of the voyage, he had dreamed of 
 begging his way barefoot to Miss Betty's door. 
 But now he did not go. His life was hard, but 
 it was not cruel. He was very idle, and there 
 was plenty to see. He wandered about the 
 country as of old. The ships and. shipping too 
 had a fascination for him now that the past was 
 past, and here he could watch them from the 
 shore ; . and, partly for shame and partly for 
 pride, he could not face the idea of going back. 
 
96 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 If he had been taunted with being a vagrant 
 boy before, what would be said now if he pre- 
 sented himself, a true tramp, to the farm-bailiff? 
 Besides, Miss Betty and Miss Kitty could not 
 forgive him. It was impossible ! 
 
 He was wandering about one day when he 
 came to some fine high walls with buildings 
 inside. There was an open gateway, at which 
 stood a soldier with a musket. But a woman 
 and some children went in, and he did not 
 shoot them ; so when his back was turned, and 
 he was walking stiffly to where he came from, 
 John Broom ran in through the gateway. 
 
 The first man he saw was the grandest-look- 
 ing man he had ever seen. Indeed, he looked 
 more like a bird than a man — a big bird with a 
 big black crest. He was very tall. His feet 
 were broad and white, like the feathered feet 
 of some plumy bird, his legs were bare and 
 brown and hairy. He was clothed in many 
 colors. He had fur in front, which swung as 
 he walked, and silver and shining stones about 
 
"So when his back was turned . . . John Broom ran 
 in through the gateway." 
 
FINE FEATHERS MAKE FINE BIRDS. Q/ 
 
 him. He held his head very high, and from it 
 drooped great black plumes. His face looked 
 as if it had been cut — roughly but artistically 
 — out of a block of old wood, and his eyes were 
 the color of a summer sky. And John Broom 
 felt as he had felt when he first saw Miss 
 Betty's cockatoo. 
 
 In repose the Highlander's eye was as clear 
 as a cairngorm and as cold, but when it fell 
 upon John Broom it took a twinkle not quite 
 unlike the twinkle in the one eye of the sailor ; 
 and then, to his amazement, this grand creature 
 beckoned to John Broom with a rather dirty hand. 
 
 *'Yes, sir," said John Broom, staring up at 
 the splendid giant, with eyes of wonder. 
 
 'Tm saying," said the Highlander, confi- 
 dentially (and it had a pleasant homely sound 
 to hear him speak like the farm-bailiff) — " I'm 
 saying, I'm confined to barracks, ye ken ; and 
 I'll gie' ye a hawpenny if ye'll get the bottle 
 filled wi' whusky. Roun' yon corner ye'll see 
 the 'Britain's Defenders.'" 
 
98 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 But at this moment he erected himself, his 
 turquoise eyes looked straight before them, 
 and he put his hand to his head and moved 
 it slowly away again, as a young man with 
 more swinging grandeur of colors and fur and 
 plumes, and with greater glitterings of gems 
 and silver, passed by, a sword clattering after 
 him. 
 
 Meanwhile John Broom had been round the 
 corner and was back again. 
 
 ''What for are ye stannin' there, ye fule.-*" 
 asked his new friend. ''What for didna ye 
 gang for the whusky ? " 
 
 "It's here, sir." 
 
 "My certy, ye dinna let the grass grow 
 under your feet," said the Highlander ; and 
 he added, " If ye want to run errands, laddie, 
 ye can come back again." 
 
 It was the beginning of a fresh life for John 
 Broom. With many other idle or homeless 
 boys he now haunted the barracks, and ran 
 errands for the soldiers. His fleetness of foot 
 
SIN MAY BE CLASPED SO CLOSE. 99 
 
 and ready wit made him the favorite. Per- 
 haps, too, his youth and his bright face and 
 eyes pleaded for him, for British soldiers are 
 a tender-hearted race. 
 
 He was knocked about, but never cruelly, 
 and he got plenty of coppers and broken 
 victuals, and now and then an old cap or pair 
 of boots, a world too large for him. His prin- 
 cipal errands were to fetch liquor for the sol- 
 diers. In arms and pockets he would sometimes 
 carry a dozen bottles at once, and fly back from 
 the canteen or public-house without breaking one. 
 
 Before the summer was over he was familiar 
 with every barrack-room and guard-room in 
 the place ; he had food to eat and coppers 
 to spare, and he shared his bits with the mon- 
 grel dogs who lived, as he did, on the good- 
 nature of the garrison. 
 
 It must be confessed that neatness was not 
 among John Broom's virtues. He looped his 
 rags together with bits of string, and wasted 
 his pence or lost them. The soldiers stand- 
 
lOO LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 ing at the bar would often give him a drink 
 out of their pewter-pots. It choked him at 
 first, and then he got used to it, and liked it. 
 Some relics of Miss Betty's teaching kept him 
 honest. He would not condescend to sip by 
 the way out of the soldiers' jugs and bottles 
 as other errand-boys did, but he came to feel 
 rather proud of laying his twopence on the 
 counter, and emptying his own pot of beer 
 with a grimace to the bystanders through the 
 glass at the bottom. 
 
 One day he was winking through the froth 
 of a pint of porter at the canteen sergeant's 
 daughter, who was in fits of laughing, when 
 the pewter was knocked out of his grasp, and 
 the big Highlander's hand was laid on his 
 shoulder and bore him twenty or thirty yards 
 from the place in one swoop. 
 
 "I'll trouble ye to give me your attention," 
 said the Highlander, when they came to a 
 standstill, "and to speak the truth. Did ye 
 ever see me the worse of liquor?" 
 
(lOl) 
 
I02 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 John Broom had several remembrances of 
 the clearest kind to that effect, so he put up 
 his arms to shield his head from the probable 
 blow, and said, "Yes, M'Alister." 
 
 " How often ? " asked the Scotchman. 
 
 " I never counted," said John Broom ; 
 "pretty often." 
 
 " How many good-conduct stripes do you 
 ken me to have lost of your ain knowl- 
 edge ? " 
 
 "Three, M'Alister." 
 
 " Is there a finer man than me in the regi- 
 ment ? " asked the Highlander, drawing up 
 his head. 
 
 " That there's not," said John Broom, 
 warmly. 
 
 " Our sairgent, now," drawled the Scotch- 
 man, " wad ye say he was a better man than 
 me ? " 
 
 " Nothing like so good," said John Broom, 
 sincerely. 
 
 " And what d'ye suppose, man," said the 
 
WE CANNOT SEE SIN S FACE. IO3 
 
 Highlander, firing with sudden passion, till the 
 light of his clear blue eyes seemed to pierce 
 John Broom's very soul — " what d'ye suppose 
 has hindered me that I'm not sairgent, when 
 yon man is ? What has keepit me from being 
 an officer, that had served my country in twa 
 battles when oor quartermaster hadna en- 
 listed ? Wha gets my money ? What lost me 
 my stripes ? What loses me decent folks' 
 respect and, waur than that, my ain ? What 
 gars a hand that can grip a broadsword trem- 
 ble like a woman's ? What fills the canteen 
 and the kirkyard ? What robs a man of health 
 and wealth and peace ? What ruins weans and 
 women, and makes mair homes desolate than 
 war ? Drink, man, drink ! The deevil of 
 drink ! " 
 
 It was not till the glare in his eyes had 
 paled that John Broom ventured to speak. 
 Then he said, — 
 
 " Why don't ye give it up, M' Alister ? " 
 The man rose to his full height, and laid 
 
I04 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 his hand heavily on the boy's shoulder, and 
 his eyes seemed to fade with that pitiful, weary 
 look, which only such blue eyes show so well, 
 " Because I canna,'' said he ; *' because, for as 
 big as I am, I canna. But for as little as you 
 are, laddie, ye can, and. Heaven help me, ye 
 shall." 
 
 That evening he called John Broom into 
 the barrack-room where he slept. He was 
 sitting on the edge of his bed, and had a little 
 wooden money-box in his hands. 
 
 *' What money have ye, laddie .? " he asked. 
 
 John Broom pulled out three halfpence lately 
 earned, and the Scotchman dropped them slowly 
 into the box. Then he turned the key, and put 
 it into his pocket, and gave the box to the boy. 
 
 **Ye'll put what ye earn in there," said he, 
 " I'll keep the key, and ye'll keep the box your- 
 sel ; and when it's opened we'll open it together, 
 and lay out your savings in decent clothes for 
 ye against the winter." 
 
 At this moment some men passing to the 
 
IF HE MANNA, I WUNNA. IO5 
 
 canteen, shouted, "M'Alister!" The High- 
 lander did not answer, but he started to the 
 door. Then he stood irresolute, and then turned 
 and reseated himself. 
 
 " Gang and bring me a bit o' tobacco," he 
 said, giving John Broom a penny. And when 
 the boy had gone he emptied his pocket of the 
 few pence left, and dropped them into the box, 
 muttering, "If he manna, I wunna." 
 
 And when the tobacco came, he lit his pipe, 
 and sat on the bench outside, and snarled at 
 everyone who spoke to him. 
 
I06 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 OUTPOST DUTY. — THE SERGEANT'S 
 STORY. — GRAND ROUNDS. 
 
 It was a bitterly cold winter. The soldiers 
 drank a great deal, and John Broom was con- 
 stantly trotting up and down, and the box grew 
 very heavy. 
 
 Bottles were filled and refilled, in spite of 
 greatly increased strictness in the discipline of 
 the garrison, for there were rumors of invasion, 
 and penalties were heavy, and sentry posts were 
 increased, and the regiments were kept in readi- 
 ness for action. 
 
 The Highlander had not cured himself of 
 drinking, though he had cured John Broom. 
 But, like others, he was more wary just now, 
 and had hitherto escaped the heavy punishments 
 inflicted in a time of probable war ; and John 
 Broom watched over him with the fidelity of a 
 
SECOND THOUGHTS. IO7 
 
 sheep dog, and more than once had roused him 
 with a can of cold water when he was all but 
 caught by his superiors in a state of stupor, 
 which would not have been credited to the frost 
 alone. 
 
 The talk of invasion had become grave, when 
 one day a body of men were ordered for outpost 
 duty, and M'Alister was among them. The 
 officer had got a room for them in a farmhouse, 
 where they sat round the fire, and went out by 
 turns to act as sentries at various posts for an 
 hour or two at a time. 
 
 The novelty was delightful to John Broom. 
 He hung about the farmhouse, and warmed him-* 
 self at the soldiers' fire. 
 
 In the course of the day M'Alister got him 
 apart, and whispered, " I'm going on duty the 
 night at ten, laddie. It's fearsome cold, and I 
 hav'na had a drop to warm me the day. If ye 
 could ha' brought me a wee drappie to the cor- 
 ner of the three roads — it's twa miles from 
 here, I'm thinking — " 
 
I08 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 "It's not the miles, M'Alister," said John 
 Broom, "but you're on outpost duty, and — " 
 
 "And you're misdoubting what may be done 
 to ye for bringing liquor to a sentry on duty? 
 Aye, aye, lad, ye do weel to be cautious," said 
 the Highlander, and he turned away. 
 
 But it was not the fear of consequences to 
 himself which had made John Broom hesitate, 
 and he was stung by the implication. 
 
 The night was dark and very cold, and the 
 Highlander had been pacing up and down his 
 post for about half-an-hour, when his quick ear 
 caught a faint sound of footsteps. 
 
 " Wha goes there ? " said he. 
 
 " It's I, M'Alister," whispered John Broom. 
 
 "Whisht, laddie," said the sentry; "are ye 
 there after all ? Did no one see ye .?" 
 
 " Not a soul ; I crept by the hedges. Here's 
 your whisky, M'Alister ; but oh be careful ! " 
 said the lad. 
 
 The Scotchman's eyes glittered greedily at 
 the bottle. 
 
THE SERGEANT S STORY. IO9 
 
 "Never fear," said he, "I'll just rub a wee 
 drappie on the pawms of my hands to keep away 
 the frost-bite, for it's awesome cold, man. Now 
 away wi' ye, and take tent, laddie, keep off the 
 other sentries." 
 
 John Broom went back as carefully as he had 
 come, and slipped in to warm himself by the 
 guard-room fire. 
 
 It was a good one, and the soldiers sat close 
 round it. The officer was writing a letter in 
 another room, and in a low, impressive voice, 
 the sergeant was telling a story which was 
 listened to with breathless attention. John 
 Broom was fond of stories, and he listened 
 also. 
 
 It was of a friend of the sergeant's, who had 
 been a boy with him in the same village at 
 home, who had seen active service with him 
 abroad, and who had slept at his post on such 
 a night as this, from the joint effects of cold 
 and drink. It was war time, and he had been 
 tried by court-martial, and shot for the offence. 
 
I lO LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 The sergeant had been one of the firing party 
 to execute his friend, and they had taken leave 
 of each other as brothers, before the final part- 
 ing face to face in this last awful scene. 
 
 The man's voice was faltering, when the tale 
 was cut short by the jingling of the field offi- 
 cer's accoutrements as he rode by to visit the 
 outposts. In an instant the officer and men 
 turned out to receive him ; and, after the usual 
 formalities, he rode on. The officer went back 
 to his letter, and the sergeant and his men to 
 their fireside. 
 
 The opening of the doors had let in a fresh 
 volume of cold, and one of the men called to 
 John Broom to mend the fire. But he was 
 gone. 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ TJC 
 
 John Broom was fleet of foot, and there are 
 certain moments which lift men beyond their 
 natural powers, but he had set himself a hard 
 task. 
 
 As he listened to the sergeant's tale, an 
 
LOVE LEND ME WINGS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 agonizing fear smote him for his friend M'Alis- 
 ter. Was there any hope that the Highlander 
 could keep himself from the whisky ? Officers 
 were making their rounds at very short inter- 
 
 vals just now, and if drink and cold overcame 
 him at his post ! 
 
 Close upon these thoughts came the jingling 
 of the field officer's sword, and the turn out of 
 
112 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 the guard. " Who goes there ? " — " Rounds.'* 
 — "What rounds.?" — ''Grand rounds."— ''Halt, 
 grand rounds, advance one, and give the coun- 
 tersign!" The familiar words struck coldly on 
 John Broom's heart, as if they had been orders 
 to a firing party, and the bandage was already 
 across the Highlander's blue eyes. Would the 
 grand rounds be challenged at the three roads 
 to-night ? He darted out into the snow. 
 
 He flew, as the crow flies, across the fields, to 
 where M'Alister was on duty. It was a much 
 shorter distance than by the road, which was 
 winding ; but whether this would balance the 
 difference between a horse's pace and his own 
 was the question, and there being no time to 
 question, he ran on. 
 
 He kept his black head down, and ran from 
 his shoulders. The clatter, clatter, jingle, jingle, 
 on .the hard road came to him through the still 
 frost on a level with his left ear. It was ter- 
 rible, but he held on, dodging under the hedges 
 to be out of sight, and the sound lessened, and 
 
TO MAKE MY PURPOSE SWIFT. II3 
 
 by-and-by, the road having wound about, he 
 could hear it faintly, but behind Jihn. 
 
 And he reached the three roads, and M'Alis- 
 ter was asleep in the ditch. 
 
 But when, with jingle and clatter, the field 
 officer of the day reached the spot, the giant 
 Highlander stood like a watch-tower at his post, 
 with a little snow on the black plumes that 
 drooped upon his shoulders. 
 
114 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 HOSPITAL. — " HAME." 
 
 John Broom did not see the Highlander again 
 for two or three days. It was Christmas week, 
 and, in spite of the war panic, there was festiv- 
 ity enough in the barracks to keep the errand- 
 boy very busy. 
 
 Then came New Year's Eve — *' Hogmenay," 
 as the Scotch call it — and it was the Highland 
 regiment's particular festival. Worn-out with 
 whisky-fetching and with helping to deck bar- 
 rack-rooms and carrying pots and trestles, John 
 Broom was having a nap in the evening, in 
 company with a mongrel deer-hound, when a 
 man shook him, and said, " I heard someone 
 asking for ye an hour or two back ; M' Alister 
 wants ye." 
 
 " Where is he } " said John Broom, jumping to 
 his feet. 
 
I'm wearin' awa'. 115 
 
 '* In hospital ; he's "been there a day or two. 
 He got cold on out-post duty, and its flown to 
 his lungs, they say. Ye see he's been a hard 
 drinker, has M'Alister, and I expect he's break- 
 ing up." 
 
 With which very just conclusion the speaker 
 went on into the canteen, and John Broom ran 
 to the hospital. 
 
 Stripped of his picturesque trappings, and 
 with no plumes to shadow the hollows in his 
 temples, M'Alister looked gaunt and feeble 
 enough, as he lay in the little hospital bed, 
 which barely held his long limbs. Such a 
 wreck of giant powers of body, and noble 
 qualities of mind as the drink-shops are pre- 
 paring for the hospitals every day ! 
 
 Since the quickly-reached medical decision 
 that he was in a rapid decline, and that nothing 
 could be done for him, M'Alister had been left 
 a good deal alone. His intellect (and it was 
 no fool's intellect,) was quite clear, and if the 
 long hours by himself, in which he reckoned 
 
Il6 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 with his own soul, had* hastened the death- 
 damps on his brow, they had also written there 
 an expression which was new to John Broom. 
 It was not the old sour look, it was a kind of 
 noble gravity. 
 
 His light-blue eyes brightened as the boy 
 came in, and he held out his hand, and John 
 Broom took it with both his, saying — 
 
 " I never heard till this minute, M' Alister. 
 Eh, I do hope you'll be better soon." 
 
 "The Lord being merciful to me," said the 
 Highlander. "But this warld's nearly past, 
 laddie, and I was fain to see ye again. Dinna 
 greet, man, for I've important business wi' ye, 
 and I should wish your attention. Firstly, I'm 
 aboot to hand ower to ye the key of your box. 
 Tak it, and put it in a pocket that's no got a 
 hole in it, if you're worth one. Secondly, 
 there's a bit bag I made mysel', and it's got a 
 trifle o' money in it that I'm giving and be- 
 queathing to ye, under certain conditions, 
 namely, that ye shall spend the contents of 
 
I never heard till this minute, M'Alister. 
 
TO THE LAND O THE LEAL. 11/ 
 
 the box according to my last wishes and in- 
 structions, with the ultimate end of your ain 
 benefit, ye'll understand." 
 
 A fit of coughing here broke M'Alister's 
 discourse ; but, after drinking from a cup 
 beside him, he put aside John Broom's remon- 
 strances with a dignified movement of his 
 hand, and continued, — 
 
 "When a body comes of decent folk, he 
 won't just care, maybe, to have their names 
 brought up in a barrack-room. Ye never heard 
 me say ought of my father or my mither ? " 
 
 "Never, M'Alister." 
 
 " I'd a good hame," said the Highlander, • 
 with a decent pride in his tone. " It was a 
 strict hame — I've no cause now to deceive 
 mysel', and I'm thinking it was a wee bit ower 
 strict — but it was a good hame. I left it, 
 man — I ran away." 
 
 The glittering blue eyes turned sharply on 
 the lad, and he went on : — 
 
 "A body doesna' care to turn his byeganes 
 
Il8 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 oot for every fool to peck at. Did I ever speer 
 about your past life, and whar ye came from ? " 
 
 "Never, M'Alister." 
 
 " But that's no to say that, if I knew man- 
 ners, I didna obsairve. And there's been 
 things now and again, John Broom, that's 
 gar'd me think that ye've had what I had, and 
 done as I did. Did ye rin awa', laddie ? " 
 
 John Broom nodded his black head, but tears 
 choked his voice. 
 
 *'Man!" said the Highlander, "ane word's 
 as gude's a thousand. Gang back ! Gang 
 hame ! There's the bit siller here that's to 
 tak ye, and the love yonder that's waiting ye. 
 Listen to a dying man, laddie, and gang 
 hame ! " 
 
 **I doubt if they'd have me," sobbed John 
 Broom, "I gave 'em a deal of trouble, M'Alister." 
 
 "And d'ye think, lad, that that thought has 
 na' cursed me, and keepit me from them that 
 loved me ? Aye lad, and till this week I never 
 overcame it." 
 
MORS JANUA VITJE. I I9 
 
 '* Weel may I want to save ye, bairn, " added 
 the Highlander tenderly, " for it was the thocht 
 of a' ye riskit for the like of me at the three 
 roads, that made me consider wi' mysel' that 
 I've aiblins been turning my back a' my wilfu' 
 life on love that's bigger than a man's deserv- 
 ings. It's near done now, and it'll never lie in 
 my poor power so much as rightly to thank ye. 
 It's strange that a man should set store by a 
 good name that he doesn' deserve ; but if ony 
 blessings of mine could bring ye good, they're 
 yours, that saved an old soldier's honor, and 
 let him die respectit in his regiment." 
 
 *'0h, M'Alister, let me fetch one of the 
 chaplains to write a letter to fetch your fa- 
 ther," cried John Broom. 
 
 "The minister's been here this morning," 
 said the Highlander, "and I've tell't him mair 
 than I've tell't you. And he's jest directed me 
 to put my sinful trust in the Father of us a'. 
 I've sinned heaviest against Htm, laddie, but 
 His love is stronger than the lave." 
 
I20 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 John Broom remained by his friend, whose 
 painful fits of coughing, and of gasping for 
 breath, were varied by intervals of seeming 
 stupor. When a candle had been brought in 
 and placed near the bed, the Highlander roused 
 himself and asked, — 
 
 " Is there a Bible on yon table ? Could ye 
 read a bit to me, laddie ? " 
 
 There is little need to dwell on the bitter- 
 ness of heart with which John Broom con- 
 fessed, — 
 
 "I can't read big words, M'Alister." 
 
 "Did ye never go to school?" said the 
 Scotchman. 
 
 " I didn't learn," said the poor boy ; " I 
 played." 
 
 "Aye, aye. Weel, ye'll learn, when ye gang 
 hame," said the Highlander, in gentle tones. 
 
 " I'll never get home," said John Broom, pas- 
 sionately. " I'll never forgive myself. ' I'll 
 never get over it, that I couldn't read to ye 
 when ye wanted me, M'Alister." 
 
''HAME. 121 
 
 " Gently, gently," said the Scotchman. 
 " Dinna daunt yoursel' owermuch wi' the past, 
 laddie. And for me — I'm not that presoomtious 
 to think I can square up a misspent life as a 
 man might compound wi's creditors. 'Gin He 
 forgi'es me, He'll forgi'e ; but it's not a prayer 
 up or a chapter doun that'll stan' between me 
 and the Almighty. So dinna fret yoursel', but 
 let me think while I may." 
 
 And so, far into the night, the High- 
 lander lay silent, and John Broom watched 
 by him. 
 
 It was just midnight when he partly raised 
 himself, and cried, — 
 
 "Whisht, laddie ! do ye hear the pipes .? " 
 
 The dying ears must have been quick, for 
 John Broom heard nothing ; but in a few 
 moments he heard the bag-pipes from the offi- 
 cers' mess, where they were keeping Hogmenay. 
 They were playing the old year out with "Auld 
 lang syne," and the Highlander beat the tune 
 out with his hand, and his eyes gleamed out of 
 
122 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 his rugged face in the dim light, as cairngorms 
 glitter in dark tartan. 
 
 There was a pause after the first verse, and 
 he grew restless, and turning doubtfully to 
 where John Broom sat, as if his sight were 
 failing, he said, " Ye'll mind your promise, ye'll 
 gang hame ? " And after awhile he repeated 
 the last word. 
 
 But as he spoke there settled over his face 
 a smile so tender and so full of happiness, that 
 John Broom held his breath as he watched him. 
 As the light of sunrise creeps over the face of 
 some rugged rock, it crept from chin to brow, 
 and the pale blue eyes shone tranquil, like water 
 that reflects heaven. 
 
 And when it had passed it left them still 
 open, but gems that had lost their ray. 
 
THERE S NAE LUCK ABOUT THE HOUSE. 1 23 
 
 LUCK GOES. — AND COMES AGAIN. 
 
 The spirit does not always falter in its faith 
 because the flesh is weary with hope deferred. 
 When week after week, month after month, and 
 year after year, went by and John Broom was 
 not found, the disappointment seemed to " age " 
 the little ladies, as Thomasina phrased it. But 
 yet they said to the parson, " We do not re- 
 gret it." 
 
 "God forbid that you should regret it," 
 said he. 
 
 And even the lawyer (whose heart was kinder 
 than his tongue) abstained from taunting them 
 with his prophecies, and said, ** The force of the 
 habits of early education is a power as well as 
 that of inherent tendencies. It is only for your 
 sake that I regret a too romantic benevolence." 
 And Miss Betty and Miss Kitty tried to put the 
 
124 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIKE. 
 
 matter quite away. But John Broom was very 
 closely bound up with the life of many years 
 past. Thomasina mourned him as if he had 
 been her son, and Thomasina being an old and 
 valuable servant, it is needless to say that when 
 she was miserable no one in the house was per- 
 mitted to be quite at ease. 
 
 As to Pretty Cocky, he lived, but Miss 
 Kitty fancied that he grew less pretty and 
 drooped upon his polished perch. 
 
 There were times when the parson felt 
 almost conscience-stricken because he had en- 
 couraged the adoption of John Broom. Dis- 
 appointments fall heavily upon elderly people. 
 They may submit better than the young, but 
 they do not so easily revive. The little old 
 ladies looked grayer and more nervous, and the 
 little old house looked grayer and gloomier 
 than of old. 
 
 Indeed there were other causes of anxiety. 
 Times were changing, prices were rising, and 
 the farm did not thrive. The lawyer said 
 
THEY ARE AY GUDE THAT ARE FAR AWA . 12$ 
 
 that the farm-bailiff neglected his duties, and 
 that the cowherd did nothing but drink ; but 
 Miss Betty trembled, and said they could not 
 part with old servants. 
 
 The farm-bailiff had his own trouble, but he 
 kept it to himself. No one knew how severely 
 he had beaten John Broom the day before he 
 ran away, but he remembered it himself with 
 painful clearness. Harsh men are apt to have 
 consciences, and his was far from easy about 
 the lad who had been entrusted to his care. 
 He could not help thinking of it when the 
 day's work was over, and he had to keep fill- 
 ing up his evening whisky-glass again and 
 again to drown disagreeable thoughts. 
 
 The whisky answered this purpose, but it 
 made him late in the morning ; it complicated 
 business on market days, not to the benefit of 
 the farm, and it put him at a disadvantage in 
 dealing with the drunken cowherd. 
 
 The cowherd was completely upset by John 
 Broom's mysterious disappearance, and he com- 
 
126 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 forted himself as the farm-bailiff did, but to a 
 larger extent. And Thomasina winked at 
 many irregularities in consideration of the 
 groans of sympathy with which he responded 
 to her tears as they sat round the hearth where 
 John Broom no longer lay. 
 
 At the time that he vanished from Ling- 
 borough the gossips of the country side said, 
 " This comes of making pets of tramps' brats, 
 when honest folks' sons may toil and moil 
 without notice." But when it was proved that 
 the tramp-boy had stolen nothing, when all 
 search for him was vain, and when prosperity 
 faded from the place season by season and year 
 by year, there were old folk who whispered 
 that the gaudily-clothed child Miss Betty had 
 found under the broom-bush had something 
 more than common in him, and that whoever 
 and whatever had offended the eerie creature, 
 he had taken the luck of Lingborough with 
 him when he went away. 
 
 It was early summer. The broom was 
 
LA PEUR EST GRAND INVENTEUR. 12/ 
 
 shining in the hedges with uncommon wealth 
 of golden blossoms. " The lanes look for all 
 the world as they did the year that poor child 
 was found," said Thomasina, wiping her eyes. 
 Annie the lass sobbed hysterically, and the 
 cowherd found himself so low in spirits that 
 after gazing dismally at the cow-stalls, which 
 had not been cleaned for days past, he betook 
 himself to the ale-house to refresh his ener- 
 gies for this and other arrears of work. 
 
 On returning to the farm, however, he found 
 his hands still feeble, and he took a drop or 
 two more to steady them, after which it oc- 
 curred to him that certain new potatoes which 
 he had had orders to dig were yet in the 
 ground. The wood was not chopped for the 
 next day's use, and he wondered what had 
 become of a fork he had had in the morning 
 and had laid down somewhere. 
 
 So he seated himself on some straw in the 
 corner to think about it all, and whilst he was 
 thinking he fell fast asleep. 
 
128 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 By his own account many remarkable things 
 had befallen him in the course of his life, 
 including that meeting with a Black Some- 
 thing to which allusion has been made, but 
 nothing so strange as what happened to him 
 that night. 
 
 When he awoke in the morning and sat 
 up on the straw, and looked around him, the 
 stable was freshly cleaned, the litter in the 
 stalls was shaken and turned, and near the door 
 was an old barrel of newly-dug potatoes, and 
 the fork stood by it. And when he ran to 
 the wood-house there lay the wood neatly 
 chopped and piled to take away. 
 
 He kept his own counsel that day and took 
 credit for the work, but when on the morrow 
 the farm-bailiff was at a loss to know who had 
 thinned the turnips that were left to do in 
 the upper field, and Annie the lass found the 
 kitchen-cloths she had left overnight to soak, 
 rubbed through and rinsed, and laid to dry, 
 the cowherd told his tale to Thomasina, and 
 
LE BON TEMPS VIENDRA. 129 
 
 begged for a bowl of porridge and cream to 
 set in the barn, as one might set a mouse-trap 
 baited with cheese. 
 
 "For," said he, "the luck of Lingborough's 
 come back, missis. It\s Lob Lie-by-the-fire f' 
 
30 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 '' It's Lob Lie-by-the-fire ! " 
 
 So Thomasina whispered exultingly, and 
 Annie the lass timidly. Thomasina cautioned 
 the cowherd to hold his tongue, and she said 
 nothing to the little ladies on the subject. She 
 felt certain that they would tell the parson, and 
 he might not approve. The farm-bailiff knew 
 of a farm on the Scotch side of the Border 
 where a Brownie had been driven away by the 
 minister preaching his last Sunday's sermon 
 over again at him, and as Thomasina said, 
 ''There'd been little enough luck at Ling- 
 borough lately, that they should wish to scare 
 it away when it came." 
 
 And yet the news leaked out gently, and was 
 soon known all through the neighborhood — as 
 a secret. 
 
THE FIEND IS ROUGH. I3I 
 
 ''The luck of Lingborough's come back. 
 Lob's lying by the fire ! " 
 
 He could be heard at his work any night, 
 and several people had seen him, though this 
 vexed Thomasina, who knew well that the Good 
 People do not like to be watched at their labors. 
 
 The cowherd had not been able to resist 
 peeping down through chinks in the floor of the 
 loft above the barn, where he slept, and one 
 night he had seen Lob fetching straw for the 
 cowhouse. *'A great rough, black fellow," 
 said he, and he certainly grew bigger and 
 rougher and blacker every time the cowherd 
 told the tale. 
 
 The Lubber-fiend appeared next to a boy who 
 was loitering at a late hour somewhere near the 
 little ladies' kitchen-garden, and whom he pur- 
 sued and pelted with mud till the lad nearly 
 lost his wits with terror. (It was the same boy 
 who was put in the lock-up in the autumn for 
 stealing Farmer Mangel's Siberian crabs.) 
 
 For this trick, however, the rough elf atoned 
 
132 
 
 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 by leaving three pecks of newly-gathered fruit 
 in the kitchen the following morning. Never 
 had there been such a preserving season at 
 Lingborough within the memory of Thomasina. 
 The truth is, hobgoblins, from Puck to Will- 
 o'-the-wisp are apt to play practical jokes and 
 
 knock people about whom they meet after sun- 
 set. A dozen tales of such were rife, and folks 
 were more amused than amazed by Lob Lie-by- 
 the-fire's next prank. 
 
 There was an aged pauper who lived on the 
 charity of the little ladies, and whom it was 
 
'tis a spell, you see, of much power. 133 
 
 Miss Betty's practice to employ to do light 
 weeding in the fields for heavy wages. This 
 venerable person was toddling to his home 
 in the gloaming with a barrow-load of Miss 
 Betty's new potatoes, dexterously hidden by 
 an upper sprinkling of groundsel and hemlock, 
 when the Lubber-fiend sprang out from behind 
 an elder-bush, ran at the old man with his 
 black head, and knocked him, heels uppermost, 
 into the ditch. The wheelbarrow was after- 
 wards found in Miss Betty's farm-yard, quite 
 empty. 
 
 And when the cowherd (who had his own 
 opinion of the aged pauper, and it was a very 
 poor one) went that evening to drink Lob Lie- 
 by-the-fire's health from a bottle he kept in 
 the harness-room window, he was nearly choked 
 with the contents, which had turned into salt 
 and water, as fairy jewels turn to withered leaves. 
 
 But luck had come to Lingborough. There 
 had not been such crops for twice seven years 
 past. ' 
 
134 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 The lay-away hen's eggs were brought regu- 
 larly to the kitchen. 
 
 The ducklings were not eaten by rats. 
 
 No fowls were stolen. 
 
 The tub of pig-meal lasted three times as 
 long as usual. 
 
GOOD MANAGEMENT. 1 35 
 
 The cart-wheels and gate-hinges were oiled 
 by unseen fingers. 
 
 The mushrooms in the croft gathered them- 
 selves and lay down on a dish in the 
 larder. 
 
 It is by small savings that a farm thrives, 
 and Miss Betty's farm throve. 
 
 Everybody worked with more alacrity. An- 
 nie the lass said the butter came in a way 
 that made it a pleasure to churn. 
 
 The neighbors knew even more than those 
 on the spot. They said — That since Lob 
 came back to Lingborough the hens laid 
 eggs as large as turkeys' eggs, and the turkeys* 
 eggs, were — oh, you wouldn't believe the 
 size ! 
 
 That the cows gave nothing but cream, and 
 that Thomasina skimmed butter off it as less 
 lucky folks skim cream from milk. 
 
 That her cheeses were as rich as butter. 
 
 That she sold all she made, for Lob took 
 the fairy butter from the old trees in the 
 
136 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 avenue, and made it up into pats for Miss 
 Betty's table. 
 
 That if you bought Lingborough turnips, you 
 might feed your cows on them all the winter 
 and the milk would be as sweet as new-mown 
 hay. 
 
 That horses foddered on Lingborough hay 
 would have thrice the strength of others, and 
 that sheep who cropped Lingborough pastures 
 would grow three times as fat. 
 
 That for as good a watch-dog as it was, the 
 sheep dog never barked at Lob, a plain proof 
 that he was more than human. 
 
 That for all its good luck it was not safe to 
 loiter near the place after dark, if you wished to 
 keep your senses. And if you took so much as 
 a fallen apple belonging to Miss Betty, yoii 
 might look out for palsy or St. Vitus's dance, 
 or be carried off bodily to the underground 
 folk. 
 
 Finally, that it was well all the cows gave 
 double, for that Lob Lie-by-the-fire drank two 
 
IS BETTER THAN GOOD INCOME. 
 
 137 
 
 gallons of the best cream every day, with curds, 
 porridge, and other dainties to match. But what 
 did that matter, when he had been overheard to 
 swear that luck should not leave Lingborough 
 till Miss Betty owned half the country side ? 
 
133 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 MISS BETTY IS SURPRISED. 
 
 Miss Betty and Miss Kitty having accepted a 
 polite invitation from Mrs. General Dunmaw, 
 went down to tea with that lady one fine even- 
 ing in this eventful summer. 
 
 Death had made a gap or two in the familiar 
 circle during the last fourteen years, but other- 
 wise it was quite the same, except that the law- 
 yer was married and not quite so sarcastic, and 
 that Mrs. Brown Jasey had brought a young 
 niece with her dressed in the latest fashion, 
 which looked quite as odd as new fashions are 
 wont to do, and with a coiffure "enough to 
 frighten the French away," as her aunt told 
 her. 
 
 It was while this young lady was getting more 
 noise out of Mrs. Dunmaw's red silk and rose- 
 wood piano than had been shaken out of it 
 
(139) 
 
I40 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 during the last thirty years, that the lawyer 
 brought his cup of coffee to Miss Betty's side, 
 and said, suavely, " I hear wonderful accounts of 
 Lingborough, dear Miss Betty." 
 
 *' I am thankful to say, sir, that the farm is 
 doing well this year. I am very thankful, for 
 the past few years have been unfavorable, and 
 we had begun to face the fact that it might 
 be necessary to sell the old place. And, I will 
 not deny, sir, that it would have gone far to 
 break my heart, to say nothing of my sister 
 Kitty's." 
 
 " Oh, we shouldn't have let it come to 
 that," said the lawyer, " I could have raised a 
 loan — " 
 
 ''Sir," said Miss Betty with dignity, "if we 
 have our own pride, I hope it's an honest one. 
 Lingborough will have passed out of our family 
 when it's kept up on borrowed money." 
 
 " I could live in lodgings," added Miss Betty, 
 firmly, " little as I've been accustomed to it, but 
 7iot in debt'' 
 
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH. I4I 
 
 "Well, well, my dear madam, we needn't talk 
 about it now. But I'm dying of curiosity as to 
 the mainstay of all this good luck." 
 
 " The turnips — " began Miss Betty. 
 
 " Bless my soul. Miss Betty ! " cried the law- 
 yer, " I'm not talking of turnips. I'm talking 
 of Lob Lie-by-the-fire, as all the country side is 
 for that matter." 
 
 " The country people have plenty of tales 
 of him," said Miss Betty, with some pride in 
 the family goblin. "He used to haunt the 
 old barns, they say, in my great-grandfather's 
 time." 
 
 "And now you've got him back again," said 
 the lawyer. 
 
 " Not that I know of," said Miss Betty. 
 
 On which the lawyer poured into her aston- 
 ished ear all the latest news on the subject, and 
 if it had lost nothing before reaching his house 
 in the town, it rather gained in marvels as he 
 repeated it to Miss Betty. 
 
 No wonder that the little lady was anxious 
 
142 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 to get home to question Thomasina, and that 
 somewhat before the usual hour she said, — 
 
 ^' Sister Kitty, if it's not too soon for the ser- 
 vant — " 
 
 And the parson, threading his way to where 
 Mrs. Dunmaw's china crape shawl (dyed crim- 
 son) shone in the bow window, said, " The 
 clergy should keep respectable hours, madam ; 
 especially when they are as old as I am. Will 
 you allow me to thank you for a very pleasant 
 evening, and to say good-night ? " 
 
IT." 143 
 
 THE PARSON AND THE LUBBER-FIEND. 
 
 '' Do you think there'd be any harm in leav- 
 ing it alone, sister Betty.?" said Miss Kitty, 
 tremulously. * 
 
 They had reached Lingborough, and the par- 
 son had come in with them, by Miss Betty's 
 request, and Thomasina had been duly ex- 
 amined. 
 
 " Eh, Miss Betty, why should ye chase away 
 good luck with the minister > " cried she. 
 
 '' Sister Kitty ! Thomasina ! " said Miss Betty. 
 " I would not accept good luck from a doubtful 
 quarter to save Lingborough. But if It can face 
 this excellent clergyman the Being who haunted 
 my great-grandfather's farm is still welcome to 
 the old barns, and you, Thomasina, need not 
 grudge It cream or curds." 
 
 ** You're quite right, sister Betty," said Miss 
 
144 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 Kitty. You always are ; but oh dear, oh 
 dear ! " — 
 
 " Thomasina tells me," said Miss Betty, turn- 
 ing to the parson, "that on chilly evenings It 
 sometimes comes and lies by the kitchen fire 
 after they have gone to bed, and I can distinctly 
 remember my grandmother mentioning the same 
 thing. Thomasina has of late left the kitchen 
 door on the latch for Its convenience, and as 
 they had to sit up late for us, she and Annie 
 have taken their work into the still-room to 
 leave the kitchen free for Lob Lie-by-the-fire. 
 They have not looked into the kitchen this 
 evening, as such beings do not like to be 
 watched. But they fancy that they heard It 
 come in. I trust, sir, that neither in myself nor 
 my sister Kitty does timidity exceed a proper 
 feminine sensibility, where duty is concerned. 
 If you will be good enough to precede us, we 
 will go to meet the old friend of my great-grand- 
 father's fortunes, and we leave it entirely to 
 your valuable discretion to pursue what course 
 you think proper on the occasion." 
 
"IT. 145 
 
 "Is this the door?" said the parson, cheer- 
 fully, after knocking his head against black 
 beams and just saving his legs down shallow 
 and unexpected steps on his way to the kitchen 
 — beams so unfelt and steps so familiar to the 
 women that it had never struck them that the 
 long passage was not the most straightforward 
 walk a man could take — " I think you said It 
 generally lies on the hearth ? " 
 
 The happy thought struck Thomasina that 
 the parson might be frightened out of his un- 
 lucky interference. 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir," said she from behind. 
 "We've heard him rolling by the fire, and 
 growling like thunder to himself. They say 
 he's an awful size, too, with the strength of four 
 men, and a long tail, and eyes like coals of fire." 
 
 But Thomasina spoke in vain, for the parson 
 opened the door, and as they pressed in, the 
 moonlight streaming through the latticed win- 
 dow showed Lob lying by the fire. 
 
 "There's his tail! Ay k!" screeched An- 
 
146 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 nie the lass, and away she went, without drawing 
 breath, to the top garret, where she locked and 
 bolted herself in, and sat her bandbox flat, and 
 screamed for help. 
 
 But it was the plumy tail of the sheep dog, 
 
 • who was lying there with the Lubber-fiend. 
 
 And Lob was asleep, with his arms round the 
 
 sheep dog's neck, and the sheep dog's head lay 
 
 on his breast, and his own head touched the dog's. 
 
 And it was a smaller head than the parson 
 had been led to expect, and it had thick black 
 hair. 
 
 As the parson bent over the hearth, Thoma- 
 sina took Miss Kitty round the waist, and Miss 
 Betty clutched her black velvet bag till the steel 
 beads ran into her hands, and they were quite 
 prepared for an explosion, and sulphur, and blue 
 lights, and thunder. 
 
 And then the parson's deep round voice broke 
 the silence, saying, — 
 
 " Is that you, lad ? God bless you, John 
 Broom. You're welcome home ! " 
 
SOME THINGS CAN NOT BE TOLD. I47 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Some things — such as gossip — gain in the 
 telling, but there are others before which words 
 fail, though each heart knows its own power of 
 sympathy. And such was the joy of the little 
 ladies and of Thomasina at John Broom's return. 
 
 The sheep dog had had his satisfaction out 
 long ago, and had kept it to himself, but how 
 Pretty Cocky crowed, and chuckled, and danced, 
 and bowed his crest, and covered his face with 
 his amber wings, and kicked his seed-pot over, 
 and spilled his water-pot on to the Derbyshire 
 marble chess-table, and screamed till the room 
 rang again, and went on screaming, with Miss 
 Kitty's pocket-handkerchief over his head to 
 keep him quiet, my poor pen can but imper- 
 fectly describe. 
 
 The desire to atone for the past which had led 
 
148 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 John Broom to act the part of one of those Good- 
 fellows who have, we must fear, finally deserted 
 us, will be easily understood. And to a nature 
 of his type, the earning of some self-respect, 
 and of a new character before others, was per- 
 haps a necessary prelude to future well-doing. 
 
 He did do well. He became "a good scholar," 
 as farmers were then. He spent as much of his 
 passionate energies on the farm as the farm 
 would absorb, and he restrained the rest. It is 
 not cockatoos only who have sometimes to live 
 and be happy in this unfinished life with one 
 wing clipped. 
 
 In fine weather, when the perch was put into 
 the garden. Miss Betty was sometimes startled 
 by stumbling on John Broom in the dusk, sitting 
 on his heels, the unfastened chain in his hand, 
 with his black head lovingly laid against Cocky's 
 white and yellow poll, talking in a low voice, 
 and apparently with the sympathy of his com- 
 panion ; and, as Miss Betty justly feared, of that 
 "other side of the world," which they both 
 
FOR OLD SAKE S SAKE. I49 
 
 knew, and which both at times had cravings to 
 revisit. 
 
 Even after the sobering influences of middle 
 age had touched him, and a wife and children 
 bound him with the quiet ties of home, he had 
 (at long intervals) his "restless times," when 
 his good ** missis" would bring out a little store 
 laid by in one of the children's socks, and would 
 bid him ** Be off, and get a breath of the sea- 
 air," but on condition that the sock went with 
 him as his purse. John Broom always looked 
 ashamed to go, but he came back the better, 
 and his wife was quite easy in his absence with 
 that confidence in her knowledge of " the mas- 
 ter," which is so mysterious to the unmarried, 
 and which Miss Betty looked upon as " want of 
 feeling" to the end. She always dreaded that 
 he would not return, and a little ruse which she 
 adopted of giving him money to make bargains 
 for foreign articles of vertu with the sailors, is 
 responsible for many of the choicest ornaments 
 in the Lingborough parlor. 
 
150 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 **The sock'll bring him home," said Mrs. 
 Broom, and home he came, and never could say 
 what he had been doing. Nor was the account 
 given by Thomasina's cousin, who was a tide- 
 waiter down yonder, particularly satisfying to 
 the women's curiosity. He said that John 
 Broom was always about ; that he went aboard 
 of all the craft in the bay, and asked whence 
 they came and whither they were bound. That, 
 being once taunted to it, he went up the rigging 
 of a big vessel like a cat, and came down it look- 
 ing like a fool. That, as a rule, he gossipped 
 and shared his tobacco with sailors and fisher- 
 men, and brought out the sock much oftener 
 than was prudent for the benefit of the ragged 
 boys who haunt the quay. 
 
 He had two other weaknesses, which a faith- 
 ful biographer must chronicle. 
 
 A regiment on the march would draw him 
 from the plough-tail itself, and " With daddy to 
 see the pretty soldiers" was held to excuse any 
 of Mrs. Broom's children from household duties. 
 
HE THAT THOLES O ERCOMES. I 5 I 
 
 The other shall be described in the graphic 
 language of that acute observer the farm-bailiff. 
 
 " If there cam' an Irish beggar, wi' a stripy 
 cloot roond him and a bellows under 's arm, and 
 ca'd himsel' a Hielander, the lad wad gi'e him 
 his silly head off his shoulders." 
 
 As to the farm-bailiff, perhaps no one felt 
 more or said less than he did on John Broom's 
 return. But the tones of his voice had tender 
 associations for the boy's ears as he took off his 
 speckled hat, and after contemplating the inside 
 for some moments, put it on again, and said, — 
 
 " Aweel, lad, sae ye've cam' hame ? " , 
 
 But he listened with quivering face when John 
 Broom told the story of M'Alister, and when it 
 was ended he rose and went out, and " took the 
 pledge " against drink, and — kept it. 
 
 Moved by similar enthusiasm, the cowherd 
 took the pledge also, and if he didn't keep it, he 
 certainly drank less, chiefly owing to the vig- 
 ilant oversight of the farm-bailiff, who now 
 exercised his natural severity almost exclusively 
 
152 LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. 
 
 in the denunciation of all liquors whatsoever, 
 from the cowherd's whisky to Thomasina's 
 elder-flower wine. 
 
 The plain cousin left his money to the little 
 old ladies, and Lingborough continued to flourish. 
 
 Partly perhaps because of this, it is doubtful 
 if John Broom was ever looked upon by the 
 rustics as quite " like other folk." 
 
 The favorite version of his history is that he 
 was Lob under the guise of a child ; that he 
 was driven away by new clothes ; that he re- 
 turned from unwillingness to see an old family 
 go to ruin '' which he had served for hundreds 
 of years " ; that the parson preached his last 
 Sunday's sermon at him ; and that, having 
 stood that test, he took his place among 
 Christian people. 
 
 Whether a name invented off-hand, however 
 plain and sensible, does not stick to a man as 
 his father's does, is a question. But John 
 Broom was not often called by his. 
 
 With Scotch caution, the farm-bailiff seldom 
 
There goes Lob Lie-by- the-Fire, the Luck of Lingborough! 
 
OLD AGE HATH HIS HONOR AND HIS TOIL. I 53 
 
 exceeded the safe title of ** Man ! " and the 
 parson was apt to address him as "My dear 
 boy " when he had certainly outgrown the 
 designation. 
 
 Miss Betty called him John Broom, but the 
 people called him by the name he had earned. 
 
 And long after his black hair lay white and 
 thick on his head, like snow on the old barn 
 roof, and when his dark eyes were dim in an 
 honored old age, the village children would 
 point him out to each other, crying, " There 
 goes Lob Lie-by-the-fire, the Luck of Ling- 
 borough ! " 
 
SNAP-DRAGONS 
 
 A TALE OF CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 MR. AND MRS. SKRATDJ. 
 
 iNCE upon a 
 time there lived 
 a certain fam- 
 ily of the name 
 ofSkratdj. (It 
 has a Russian 
 or Polish look, 
 and yet they 
 most certainly 
 ^<- lived in Eng-. 
 land.) They 
 were remark- 
 able for the following peculiarity. They seldom 
 seriously quarrelled, but they never agreed about 
 (155) 
 
1 56 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 anything. It is hard to say whether it were 
 more painful for their friends to hear them 
 constantly contradicting each other, or grati- 
 fying to discover that it " meant nothing," and 
 was ''only their way." 
 
 It began with the father and mother. They 
 were a worthy couple, and really attached to 
 each other. But they had a habit of contra- 
 dicting each other's statements, and opposing 
 each other's opinions, which, though mutually 
 understood and allowed for in private, was most 
 trying to the by-standers in public. If one 
 related an anecdote, the other would break in 
 with half-a-dozen corrections of trivial details 
 of no interest or importance to anyone, the 
 speakers included. For instance : Suppose the 
 two dining in a strange house, and Mrs. Skratdj 
 seated by the host, and contributing to the 
 small-talk of the dinner-table. Thus : — 
 
 " Oh yes. Very changeable weather indeed. 
 It looked quite promising yesterday morning in 
 the town, but it began to rain at noon." 
 
MIGHTY CONTESTS. 15/ 
 
 *'A quarter past eleven, my dear," Mr. 
 Skratdj's voice would be heard to say from 
 several chairs down, in the corrective tones of a 
 husband and a father ; " and really, my dear, so 
 far from being a promising morning, I must say 
 it looked about as threatening as it well could. 
 Your memory is not always accurate in small 
 matters, my love." 
 
 But Mrs. Skratdj had not been a wife and 
 a mother for fifteen years, to be snuffed out at 
 one snap of the martial snuffers. As Mr. 
 Skratdj leaned forward in his chair, she leaned 
 forward in hers, and defended herself across the 
 intervening couples. 
 
 "Why, my dear Mr. Skratdj, you said your- 
 self the weather had not been so promising for 
 a week." 
 
 "What I said, my dear, pardon me, was that 
 the barometer was higher than it had been for 
 a week. But, as you might have observed if 
 these details were in your line, my love, which 
 they are not, the rise was extraordinarily rapid, 
 
158 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 and there is no surer sign of unsettled weather. 
 — But Mrs. Skratdj is apt to forget these un- 
 important trifles," he added, with a compre- 
 hensive smile round the dinner-table ; *' her 
 thoughts are very properly absorbed by the 
 more important domestic^ questions of the 
 nursery." 
 
 " Now I think that's rather unfair on Mr. 
 Skratdj's part," Mrs. Skratdj would chirp, with 
 a smile quite as affable and as general as her 
 husband's. ** I'm sure he's quite as forgetful 
 and inaccurate as / am. And I don't think my 
 memory is at all a bad one." 
 
 " You forgot the dinner hour when we were 
 going out to dine last week, nevertheless," said 
 Mr. Skratdj. 
 
 " And you couldn't help me when I asked 
 you," was the sprightly retort. " And I'm sure 
 it's not like you to forget anything about dimtery 
 my dear." 
 
 **The letter was addressed to you," said Mr. 
 Skratdj. 
 
KNIVES! 159 
 
 "I sent it to you by Jemima," said Mrs. 
 Skratdj. 
 
 "I didn't read it," said Mr. Skratdj. 
 
 " Well, you burnt it," said Mrs. Skratdj ; " and, 
 as I always say, there's nothing more foolish 
 than burning a letter of invitation before the 
 day, for one is certain to forget." 
 
 " I've no doubt you always do say it," Mr. 
 Skratdj remarked, with a smile, " but I certainly 
 never remember to have heard the observation 
 from your lips, my love." 
 
 "Whose memory's in fault there.?" asked 
 Mrs. Skratdj triumphantly ; and as at this 
 point the ladies rose, Mrs. Skratdj had the last 
 word. 
 
 Indeed, as may be gathered from this con- 
 versation, Mrs. Skratdj was quite able to de- 
 fend herself. When she was yet a bride, and 
 young and timid, she used to collapse when Mr. 
 Skratdj contradicted her statements, and set 
 her stories straight in public. Then she hardly 
 ever opened her lips without disappearing under 
 
l60 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 the domestic extinguisher. But in the course 
 of fifteen years she had learned that Mr. 
 Skratdj's bark was a great deal worse than his 
 bite. (If, indeed, he had a bite at all.) Thus 
 snubs that made other people's ears tingle, had 
 no effect whatever on the lady to whom they 
 were addressed, for she knew exactly what they 
 were worth, and had by this time become 
 fairly adept at snapping in return. In the days 
 when she succumbed she was occasionally 
 unhappy, but now she and her husband under- 
 stood each other, and having agreed to differ, 
 they unfortunately agreed also to differ in 
 public. 
 
 Indeed, if was the by-standers who had the 
 worst of it on these occasions. To the worthy 
 couple themselves the habit had become second 
 nature, and in no way affected the friendly 
 tenor of their domestic relations. They would 
 interfere with each other's conversation, con- 
 tradicting assertions, and disputing conclusions 
 for a whole evening ; and then, when all the 
 
SCISSORS! l6l 
 
 world and his wife thought that these ceaseless 
 sparks of bickering must blaze up into a flaming 
 quarrel as soon as they were alone, they would 
 bowl amicably home in a cab, criticising the 
 friends who were commenting upon them, and 
 as little agreed about the events of the evening 
 as about the details of any other events whatever. 
 Yes. The by-standers certainly had the 
 worst of it. Those who were near wished them- 
 selves anywhere else, especially when appealed 
 to. Those who were at a distance did not mind 
 so much. A domestic squabble at a certain 
 distance is interesting, like an engagement 
 viewed from a point beyond the range of guns. 
 In such a position one may some day be placed 
 oneself ! Moreover, it gives a touch of excite- 
 ment to a dull evening to be able to say sotto 
 voce to one's neighbor, ''Do listen! The 
 Skratdjs are at it again ! " Their unmarried 
 friends thought a terrible abyss of tyranny and 
 aggravation must lie beneath it all, and blessed 
 their stars that they were still single, and able 
 
1 62 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 to tell a tale their own way. The married ones 
 had more idea of how it really was, and wished 
 in the name of common sense and good taste 
 that Skratdj and his wife would not make fools 
 of themselves. 
 
 So it went on, however ; and so, I suppose, 
 it goes on still, for not many bad habits are 
 cured in middle age. 
 
 On certain questions of comparative speaking 
 their views were never identical. Such as the 
 temperature being hot or cold, things being 
 light or dark, the apple-tarts being sweet or 
 sour. So one day Mr. Skratdj came into the 
 room, rubbing his hands, and planting himself 
 at the fire with "Bitterly cold it is to-day, to 
 be sure." 
 
 "Why, my dear William," said Mrs. Skratdj, 
 " I'm sure you must have got a cold ; I feel a 
 fire quite oppressive myself." 
 
 "You were wishing you'd a seal-skin jacket 
 yesterday, when it wasn't half as cold as it is 
 to-day," said Mr. Skratdj. 
 
STRAINING HARSH DISCORDS. 163 
 
 m 
 
 "My dear William ! Why, the children were 
 shivering the whole day, and the wind was in 
 the north." 
 
 ''Due east, Mrs. Skratdj." 
 
 **I know by the smoke," said Mrs. Skratdj, 
 softly but decidedly. 
 
 *' I fancy I can tell an east wind when I feel 
 it," said Mr. Skratdj, jocosely, to the company. 
 
 *' I told Jemima to look at the weathercock," 
 murmured Mrs. Skratdj. 
 
 "I don't care a fig for Jemima," said her 
 husband. 
 
 On another occasion Mrs. Skratdj and a lady 
 friend were conversing. 
 
 . . . "We met him at the Smiths' — a 
 gentlemanlike agreeable man, about forty," 
 said Mrs. Skratdj, in reference to some matter 
 interesting to both ladies. 
 
 "Not a day over thirty-five," said Mr. Skratdj, 
 from behind his newspaper. 
 
 "Why, my dear William, his hair's gray," 
 said Mrs. Skratdj. 
 
164 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 " Plenty of men are gray at thirty," said Mr. 
 Skratdj. "I knew a man who was gray at 
 twenty-five." 
 
 "Well, forty or thirty-five, it doesn't much 
 matter," said Mrs. Skratdj, about to resume her 
 narration. 
 
 " Five years matter a good deal to most 
 people at thirty-five," said Mr, Skratdj, as he 
 walked towards the door. *' They would make 
 a remarkable difference to me, I know " ; and 
 with a jocular air Mr. Skratdj departed, and 
 Mrs. Skratdj had the rest of the anecdote her 
 own way. 
 
THE CHILD HATH A RED TONGUE. 
 
 [65 
 
 THE LITTLE SKRATDJS. 
 
 THE Spirit of Con- 
 tradiction finds a 
 place in most nurs- 
 eries, though 
 to a very vary- 
 ing degree in 
 differentones. 
 Children snap 
 and snarl by 
 nature, like 
 young pup- 
 pies; and 
 most of us can remember taking part in some 
 such spirited dialogues as the following : — 
 
 ( *'I will." ( "You daren't." 
 
 ''You can't' 
 "You shall." 
 "I won't." 
 
 I "I 
 
 dare." 
 ( "I'll tell Mamma." 
 \ " I don't care if you do. 
 
l66 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 It is the part of wise parents to repress these 
 squibs and crackers of juvenile contention, and 
 to enforce that slowly-learned lesson, that in 
 this world one must often ''pass over" and 
 '* put up with " things in other people, being 
 oneself by no means perfect. Also that it is a 
 kindness, and almost a duty, to let people think 
 and say and do things in their own way 
 occasionally. 
 
 But even if Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj had ever 
 thought of teaching all this to their children, it 
 must be confessed that the lesson would not 
 have come with a good grace from either of 
 them, since they snapped and snarled between 
 themselves as much or more than their children 
 in the nursery. 
 
 The two eldest were the leaders in the nursery 
 squabbles. Between these, a boy and a girl, a 
 ceaseless war of words was waged from morning 
 to night. And as neither of them lacked ready 
 wit, and both were in constant practice, the art 
 of snapping was cultivated by them to the 
 highest pitch. 
 
LIKE ITS FATHER. 1 6/ 
 
 It began at breakfast, if not sooner. 
 
 " You've taken my chair." 
 
 "It's not your chair." 
 
 *^ You know it's the one I like, and it was in 
 my place." 
 
 " How do you know it was in your 
 place?" 
 
 "Never mind. I do know." 
 
 "No, you don't." 
 
 "Yes, I do." 
 
 " Suppose I say it was in my place." 
 
 "You can't, for it wasn't." 
 
 "I can, if I like." 
 
 " Well, was it .? " 
 
 "I sha'n't tell you." 
 
 " Ah ! that shows it wasn't." 
 
 "No, it doesn't." 
 
 "Yes, it does." 
 
 Etc., etc., etc. 
 
 The direction of their daily walks was a 
 fruitful subject of difference of opinion. 
 
 "Let's go on the Common to-day. Nurse." 
 
l68 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 "Oh, don't let's go there; we're always going 
 on the Common." 
 
 " I'm sure we're not. We've not been there 
 for ever so long." 
 
 " Oh, what a story ! We were there on 
 Wednesday. Let's go down Gipsey Lane. 
 We never go down Gipsey Lane." 
 
 " Why, we're always going down Gipsey 
 Lane. And there's nothing to see there." 
 
 " I don't care. I won't go on the Common, 
 and I shall go and get Papa to say we're to go 
 down Gipsey Lane. I can run faster than you." 
 
 "That's very sneaking ; but I don't care." 
 
 "Papa! Papa ! Polly's called me a sneak." 
 
 "No, I didn't. Papa." 
 
 "You did." 
 
 " No, I didn't. I only said it was sneaking 
 of you to say you'd run faster than me, and get 
 Papa to say we were to go down Gipsey Lane." 
 
 " Then you did call him sneaking," said Mr. 
 Skratdj. "And you're a very naughty ill-man- 
 nered httle girl. You're getting very trouble- 
 
SNEAKING. 169 
 
 some, Polly, and I shall have to send you to 
 school, where you'll be kept in order. Go 
 where your brother wishes at once." 
 
 For Polly and her brother had reached an age 
 when it was convenient, if possible, to throw 
 the blame of all nursery differences on Polly. 
 In families where domestic discipline is rather 
 fractious than firm, there comes a stage when 
 the girls almost invariably go to the wall, be- 
 cause they will stand snubbing, and the boys 
 will not. Domestic authority, like some other 
 powers, is apt to be magnified on the weaker class. 
 
 But Mr. Skratdj would not always listen even 
 to Harry. 
 
 " If you don't give it me back directly, I'll 
 tell about your eating the two magnum-bonums 
 in the kitchen garden on Sunday," said Master 
 Harry on one occasion. 
 
 "Tell-tale tit! 
 Your tongue shall be slit, 
 And every dog in the town shall have a little bit," 
 
 quoted his sister. 
 
I/O SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 *' Ah ! You've called me a tell-tale. Now 
 I'll go and tell Papa. You got into a fine 
 scrape for calling me names the other day." 
 
 '' Go, then ! I don't care." 
 
 *' You wouldn't like me to go, I know/ 
 
 " You daren't. That's what it is." 
 
 "I dare." 
 
 " Then why don't you ? " 
 
 " Oh, I am going ; but you'll see what will be 
 the end of it." 
 
 Polly, however, had her own reasons for re- 
 maining stolid, and Harry started. But when 
 he reached the landing he paused. Mr. Skratdj 
 had especially announced that morning that he 
 did not wish to be disturbed, and though he was 
 a favorite, Harry had no desire to invade the 
 dining-room at this crisis. So he returned to 
 the nursery, and said with a magnanimous air, 
 ' '' I don't want to get you into a scrape, Polly. 
 If you'll beg my pardon I won't go." 
 
 '* I'm sure I sha'n't," said Polly, who was 
 equally well informed as to the position of 
 affairs at head-quarters. *' Go, if you dare." 
 
TELL-TALE TIT. I /I 
 
 "I won't if you want me not," said Harry, 
 discreetly waiving the question of apologies. 
 
 " But Vd rather you went," said the obdurate 
 Polly. " You're always telling tales. Go and 
 tell now, if you're not afraid." 
 
 So Harry went. But at the bottom of the 
 stairs he lingered again, and was meditating 
 how to return with most credit to his dig- 
 nity, when Polly's face appeared through the 
 banisters, and Polly's sharp tongue goaded 
 him on. * 
 
 *' Ah ! I see you. You're stopping. You 
 daren't go." 
 
 " I dare," said Harry ; and at last he went. 
 
 As he turned the handle of the door, Mr. 
 Skratdj turned round. 
 
 *' Please, Papa — " Harry began. 
 
 "Get away with you!" cried Mr. Skratdj. 
 " Didn't I tell you I was not to be disturbed 
 this morning.'* What an extraor — " 
 
 But Harry had shut the door, and withdrawn 
 precipitately. 
 
1/2 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 Once outside, he returned to the nursery with 
 dignified steps, and an air of apparent satis- 
 faction, saying, 
 
 "You're to give me the bricks, please." 
 
 "Who says so?" 
 
 " Why, who should say so ? Where have I 
 been, pray ? " 
 
 " I don't know, and I don't care.'* 
 
 " I've been to Papa. There ! " 
 
 " Did he say I was to give up the bricks ? " 
 
 "I've told you." 
 
 " No, you've not." 
 
 "I sha'n't tell you any more." 
 
 " Then I'll go to Papa and ask." 
 
 " Go by all means." 
 
 " I won't if you'll tell me truly." 
 
 "I sha'n't tell you anything. Go and ask, if 
 you dare," said Harry, only too glad to have the 
 tables turned. 
 
 Polly's expedition met with the same fate, and 
 she attempted to cover her retreat in a similar 
 manner. 
 
MORE THAN A WOUND. 173 
 
 "Ah! you didn't tell." 
 
 *' I don't believe you asked Papa." 
 
 " Don't you ? Very well ! " 
 
 - Well, did you .? " 
 
 "Never mind." 
 
 Etc., etc., etc. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Skratdj scolded Mrs. Skratdj 
 for not keeping the children in better order. 
 And Mrs. Skratdj said it was quite impossible 
 to do so, when Mr. Skratdj spoilt Harry as he 
 did, and weakened her (Mrs. Skratdj 's) authority 
 by constant interference. 
 
 Difference of sex gave point to many of these 
 nursery squabbles, as it so often does to do- 
 mestic broils. 
 
 "Boys never will do what they're asked," 
 Polly would complain. 
 
 "Girls ask such unreasonable things," was 
 Harry's retort. 
 
 " Not half so unreasonable as the things you 
 ask." 
 
 "Ah ! that's a different thing ! Women have 
 
174 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 got to do what men tell them, whether it's 
 reasonable or not." 
 
 " No, they've not ! " said Polly. " At least, 
 that's only husbands and wives." 
 
 "All women are inferior animals," said 
 Harry. 
 
 " Try ordering Mamma to do what you want, 
 and see ! " said Polly. 
 
 "Men have got to give orders, and women 
 have to obey," said Harry, falling back on the 
 general principle. "And when I get a wife, 
 I'll take care I make her do what I tell her. 
 But you'll have to obey your husband when you 
 get one." 
 
 " I won't have a husband, and then I can do 
 as I like." 
 
 "Oh, won't you.? You'll try to get one, I 
 know. Girls always want to be married." 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know why," said Polly; 
 "they must have had enough of men if they 
 have brothers." 
 
 And so they went on, ad infirtiUim, with 
 
SMART SAYINGS. 1/5 
 
 ceaseless arguments that proved nothing and 
 convinced nobody, and a continual stream of 
 contradiction that just fell short of downright 
 quarrelling. 
 
 Indeed, there was a kind of snapping even 
 less near to a dispute than in the cases just 
 mentioned. The little Skratdjs, like some other 
 children, were under the unfortunate delusion 
 that it sounds clever to hear little boys and 
 girls snap each other up with smart sayings, 
 and old and rather vulgar play upon words, 
 such as : 
 
 '' I'll give you a Christmas box. Which ear 
 will you have it on } " 
 
 "I won't stand it." 
 
 " Pray take a chair." 
 
 *' You shall have it to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow never comes." 
 
 And so if a visitor kindly began to talk to 
 one of the children, another was sure to 
 draw near and "take up" all the first child's 
 answers, with smart comments, and catches 
 
176 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 that sounded as silly as they were tiresome 
 and impertinent. 
 
 And ill-mannered as this was, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Skratdj never put a stop to it. Indeed, it was 
 only a caricature of what they did themselves. 
 But they often said, "We can't think how it is 
 the children are always squabbling ! " 
 
STRANGE INFECTION. 1 7/ 
 
 THE SKRATDJS' DOG AND THE HOT- 
 TEMPERED GENTLEMAN. 
 
 It is wonderful how the state of mind of a 
 whole household is influenced by the heads of 
 it. Mr. Skratdj was a very kind master, and 
 Mrs. Skratdj was a very kind mistress, and yet 
 their servants lived in a perpetual fever of 
 irritability that just fell short of discontent. 
 They jostled each other on the back stairs, said 
 sharp things in the pantry, and kept up a 
 perennial warfare on the subject of the duty of 
 the sexes with the general man-servant. They 
 gave warning on the slightest provocation. 
 
 The very dog was infected by the snapping 
 mania. He was not a brave dog, he was not 
 a vicious dog, and no high-breeding sanctioned 
 his pretensions to arrogance. But like his 
 owners, he had contracted a bad habit, a trick, 
 
1/8 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 which made him the pest of all timid visitors, 
 and indeed of all visitors whatsoever. 
 
 The moment anyone approached the house, 
 on certain occasions when he was spoken to, 
 and often iji no traceable connection with any 
 cause at all. Snap the mongrel would rush out, 
 and bark in his little sharp voice — ** Yap ! yap ! 
 yap ! " If the visitor made a stand, he would 
 bound away sideways on his four little legs ; 
 but the moment the visitor went on his way 
 again. Snap was at his heels — " Yap ! yap ! 
 yap !" He barked at the milkman, the butcher's 
 boy, and the baker, though he saw them every 
 day. He never got* used to the washerwoman, 
 and she never got used to him. She said he 
 " put her in mind of that there black dog in the 
 Pilgrim's Progress." He sat at the gate in 
 summer, and yapped at every vehicle and every 
 pedestrian who ventured to pass on the high 
 road. He never but once had the chance of 
 barking at burglars; and then, though he barked 
 long and loud, nobody got up, for they said, 
 
snap's way. 
 
 179 
 
 "It's only Snap's way." The Skratdjs lost a 
 silver teapot, a Stilton cheese, and two electro 
 christening mugs, on this occasion ; and Mr. 
 and Mrs. Skratdj dispute who it was who dis- 
 couraged reliance on Snap's warning to the 
 present day. 
 
 One Christmas time, a certain hot-tempered 
 gentleman came to visit the Skratdjs. A tall, 
 sandy, energetic young man, who carried his 
 own bag from the railway. The bag had been 
 crammed rather than packed, after the wont of 
 
l80 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 bachelors ; and you could see where the heel of 
 a , boot distended the leather, and where the 
 bottle of shaving-cream lay. 
 
 As he came up to the house, out came Snap 
 as usual — " Yap ! yap ! yap ! " Now the gentle- 
 man was very fond of dogs, and had borne this 
 greeting some dozen of times from Snap, who 
 for his part knew the visitor quite as well as 
 the washerwoman, and rather better than the 
 butcher s boy. The gentleman had good, sen- 
 sible, well-behaved dogs of his own, and was 
 greatly disgusted with Snap's conduct. Never- 
 theless he spoke friendly to him ; and Snap, 
 who had had many a bit from his plate, could 
 not help stopping for a minute to lick his hand. 
 But no sooner did the gentleman proceed on 
 his way, than Snap flew at his heels in the 
 usual fashion — 
 
 « Yap ! Yap ! Yap ! " 
 
 On which the gentleman — being hot-tempered, 
 aiad one of those people with whom it is (as they 
 
(i8i) 
 
1 82 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 say) a word and a blow, and the blow first — 
 made a dash at Snap, and Snap taking to his 
 heels, the gentleman flung his carpet-bag after 
 him. The bottle of shaving-cream hit upon a 
 stone and was smashed. The heel of the boot 
 caught Snap on the back, and sent him squeal- 
 ing to the kitchen. And he never barked at 
 that gentleman again. 
 
 If the gentleman disapproved of Snap's con- 
 duct, he still less liked the continual snapping 
 of the Skratdj family themselves. He was an 
 old friend of Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj, however, 
 and knew that they were really happy together, 
 and that it was only a bad habit which made 
 them constantly contradict each other. It was 
 in allusion to their real affection for each other, 
 and their perpetual disputing, that he called 
 them the " Snapping Turtles." 
 
 When the war of words waxed hottest at the 
 dinner-table between his host and hostess, he 
 would drive his hands through his shock of 
 sandy hair, and say, with a comical glance out 
 
SNAPPING TURTLES. 1 83 
 
 of his umber eyes, " Don't flirt, my friends. It 
 makes a bachelor feel awkward." 
 
 And neither Mr. nor Mrs. Skratdj could help 
 laughing. 
 
 With the little Skratdj s his measures were 
 more vigorous. He was very fond of children, 
 and a good friend to them. He grudged no 
 time or trouble to help them in their games and 
 projects, but he would not tolerate their snap- 
 ping up each other's words in his presence. 
 He was much more truly kind than many 
 visitors, who think it polite to smile at the 
 sauciness and forwardness which ignorant van- 
 ity leads children so often to " show off " before 
 strangers. These civil acquaintances only 
 abuse both children and parents behind their 
 backs, for the very bad habits which they help 
 to encourage. 
 
 The hot-tempered gentleman's treatment of 
 his young friends was very different. One day 
 he was talking to Polly, and making some kind 
 inquiries about her lessons, to which she was 
 
184 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 replying in a quiet and sensible fashion, when 
 up came Master Harry, and began to display 
 his wit by comments on the conversation, and 
 by snapping at and contradicting his sister's 
 remarks, to which she retorted ; and the usual 
 snap-dialogue went on as usual. 
 
 "Then you like music," said the hot-tem- 
 pered gentleman. 
 
 " Yes, I like it very much," said Polly. 
 
 "Oh, do you.?" Harry broke in. "Then 
 what are you always crying over it for ? " 
 
 "I'm not always crying over it." 
 
 "Yes, you are." 
 
 " No, I'm not. I only cry sometimes, when I 
 stick fast." 
 
 " Your music must be very sticky, for you're 
 always stuck fast." 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! " said the hot-tempered 
 gentleman. 
 
 With what he imagined to be a very waggish 
 air, Harry put out his tongue, and held it with 
 his finger and thumb. It was unfortunate that 
 
QUI SEME DES CHARDONS. 1 85 
 
 he had not time to draw it in again before the 
 hot-tempered gentleman gave him a stinging 
 box on the ear, which brought his teeth rather 
 sharply together on the tip of his tongue, which 
 was bitten in consequence. 
 
 " It's no use speaking^'' said the hot-tempered 
 gentleman, driving his hands through his hair. 
 
 Children are like dogs, they are very good 
 judges of their real friends. Harry did not like 
 •the hot-tempered gentleman a bit the less 
 because he was obliged to respect and obey 
 him ; and all the children welcomed him bois- 
 terously when he arrived that Christmas which 
 we have spoken of in connection with his attack 
 on Snap. 
 
 It was on the morning of Christmas Eve that 
 the china punch bowl was broken. Mr. Skratdj 
 had a warm dispute with Mrs. Skratdj as to 
 whether it had been kept in a safe place ; after 
 which both had a brisk encounter with the 
 housemaid, who did not know how it happened ; 
 
1 86 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 and she, flouncing down the back passage, 
 kicked Snap ; who forthwith flew at the gar- 
 dener as he was bringing in the horse-radish for 
 the beef; who stepping backwards trode upon 
 the cat ; who spit and swore, and went up the 
 pump with her tail as big as a fox's brush. 
 
 To avoid this domestic scene, the hot-tem- 
 pered gentleman withdrew to the breakfast-room 
 and took up a newspaper. By-and-by, Harry 
 and Polly came in, and they were soon snapping 
 comfortably over their own affairs in a corner. * 
 
 The hot-tempered gentleman's umber eyes 
 had been looking over the top of his newspaper 
 at them for some time, before he called, '* Harry, 
 my boy ! " 
 
 And Harry came up to him. 
 
 ** Show me your tongue, Harry," said he. 
 
 "What for.-^" said Harry; "you're not a 
 doctor." 
 
 "Do as I tell you," said the hot-tempered 
 gentleman ; and as Harry saw his hand moving, 
 he put his tongue out with all possible haste. 
 
(i87) 
 
IQ6 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 The hot-tempered gentleman sighed. "Ah!" 
 he said in depressed tones ; " I thought so ! — 
 Polly, come and let me look at yours." 
 
 Polly, who had crept up during this process, 
 now put out hers. But the hot-tempered 
 gentleman looked gloomier still, and* shook his 
 head. 
 
 "What is it.?" cried both the children. 
 " What do you mean .? " And they seized the 
 tips of their tongues in their fingers, to feel for 
 themselves. 
 
 But the hot-tempered gentleman went slowly 
 out of the room without answering; passing his 
 hands through his hair, and saying, "Ah! 
 Hum!" and nodding with an air of grave 
 foreboding. 
 
 Just as he crossed the threshold, he turned 
 back, and put his head into the room. " Have 
 you ever noticed that your tongues are growing 
 pointed } " he asked. 
 
 " No ! " cried the children with alarm. " Are 
 they?" 
 
\ 
 
 RECUEILLE DES EPINES. 1 89 
 
 **If ever you find them becoming forked," 
 said the gentleman in solemn tones, "let me 
 know." 
 
 With which he departed, gravely shaking his 
 head. 
 
 In the afternoon the children attacked him 
 again. 
 
 ''Do tell us what's the matter with our 
 tongues." 
 
 " You were snapping and squabbling just as 
 usual this morning," said the hot-tempered 
 gentleman. 
 
 "Well, we forgot," said Polly. "We don't 
 mean anything, you know. But never mind 
 that now, please. Tell us about our tongues. 
 What is going to happen to them ? " 
 
 "I'm very much afraid," said the hot-tem- 
 pered gentleman, in solemn measured tones, 
 "that you are both of you — fast — going — to 
 — the—" 
 
 "Dogs.?" suggested Harry, who was learned 
 in cant expressions. 
 
190 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 "Dogs!" said the hot-tempered gentleman, 
 driving his hands through his hair. "Bless 
 your life, no ! Nothing half so pleasant ! (That 
 is, unless all dogs were like Snap, which merci- 
 fully they are not.) No, my sad fear is, that 
 you are both of you — rapidly — going — to the 
 Snap-Dragons .' " 
 
 And not another word would the hot-tempered 
 gentleman say on the subject. 
 
FAMILY JARS. . I9I 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 In the course of a few hours Mr. and Mrs. 
 Skratdj recovered their equanimity. The punch 
 was brewed in a jug, and tasted quite as good 
 as usual. The evening was very hvely. There 
 were a Christmas tree, Yule cakes, log, and 
 candles, furmety, and snap-dragon after supper. 
 When the company was tired of the tree, and 
 had gained an appetite by the hard exercise 
 of stretching to high branches, blowing out 
 "dangerous" tapers, and cutting ribbon and 
 pack-thread in all directions, supper came, with 
 its welcome cakes and furmety and punch. 
 And when furmety somewhat palled upon the 
 taste (and it must be admitted to boast more 
 sentiment than flavor as a Christmas dish), 
 the Yule candles were blown out and both the 
 spirits and the palates of the party were stimu- 
 
192 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 lated by the mysterious and pungent pleasures 
 of snap-dragon. 
 
 Then, as the hot-tempered gentleman warmed 
 his coat-tails at the Yule-log, a grim smile stole 
 over his features as he listened to the sounds 
 in the room. In the darkness the blue flames 
 leaped and danced, the raisins were snapped 
 and snatched from hand to hand, scattering 
 fragments of flame hither and thither. The 
 children shouted as the fiery sweetmeats burnt 
 away the mawkish taste of the furmety. Mr. 
 Skratdj * cried that they were spoiling the 
 carpet ; Mrs. Skratdj complained that he had 
 spilled some brandy on her dress. Mr. Skratdj 
 retorted that she should not wear dresses so 
 susceptible of damage in the family circle. 
 Mrs. Skratdj recalled an old speech of Mr. 
 Skratdj on the subject of wearing one's nice 
 things for the benefit of one's family, and not 
 reserving them for visitors. Mr. Skratdj re- 
 membered that Mrs. Skratdj 's excuse for buying 
 that particular dress when she did not need it, 
 
THE FAMILY CIRCLE. 
 
 193 
 
 was her intention of keeping it for the next 
 year. The children disputed as to the credit 
 for courage and the amount of raisins due to 
 each. Snap barked furiously at the flames ; 
 and the maids hustled each other for good 
 places in the doorway, and would not have 
 
 allowed the man-servant to see at all, but he 
 looked over their heads. 
 
 '' St ! St ! At it ! At it ! " chuckled the hot- 
 tempered gentleman in undertones. And when 
 he said this, it seemed as if the voices of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Skratdj rose higher in matrimonial 
 repartee, and the children's squabbles became 
 
194 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 louder, and the dog yelped as if he were mad, 
 and the maids' contest was sharper ; whilst the 
 snap-dragon flames leaped up and up, and 
 blue fire flew about the room like foam. 
 
 At last the raisins were finished, the flames 
 were all but out, and the company withdrew to 
 the drawing-room. Only Harry lingered. 
 
 " Come along, Harry," said the hot-tempered 
 gentleman. 
 
 " Wait a minute," said Harry. 
 
 " You had better come," said the gentleman. 
 
 *' Why .?" said Harry. 
 
 "There's nothing to stop for. The raisins 
 are eaten, the brandy is burnt out — " 
 
 " No, it's not," said Harry. 
 
 " Well, almost. It would be better if it were 
 quite out. Now come. It's dangerous for a 
 boy like you to be alone with the Snap-Dragons 
 to-night." 
 
 " Fiddle-sticks ! " said Harry. 
 
 " Go your own way, then ! " said the hot-tem- 
 pered gentleman ; and he bounced out of the 
 room, and Harry was left alone. 
 
MAN ANGRER OFTE SIN TALE. 1 95 
 
 DANCING WITH THE DRAGONS. 
 
 He crept up to the table, where one little 
 pale blue flame flickered in the snap-dragon 
 dish. 
 
 "What a pity it should go out ! " said Harry. 
 At this moment the brandy bottle on the side- 
 board caught his eye, 
 
 " Just a little more," murmured Harry to 
 himself ; and he uncorked the bottle, and 
 poured a little brandy on to the flame. 
 
 Now of course, as soon as the brandy touched 
 the fire, all the brandy in the bottle blazed up 
 at once, and the bottle split to pieces ; and it 
 was very fortunate for Harry that he did not 
 get seriously hurt. A little of the hot brandy 
 did get into his eyes, and made them smart, so 
 that he had to shut them for a few seconds. 
 
196 
 
 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 BUT when he opened 
 them again, what a sight 
 he saw ! All over the 
 room the blue flames 
 leaped and danced as 
 they had leaped and 
 danced in the soup-plate 
 with the raisins. And 
 Harry saw that each 
 successive flame was the 
 fold in the long body of 
 a bright blue Dragon, 
 which moved like the 
 body of a snake. And the room was full of 
 these Dragons. In the face they were like the 
 dragons one sees made of very old blue and 
 white china ; and they had forked tongues, like 
 the tongues of serpents. They were most 
 beautiful in color, being sky-blue. Lobsters 
 who have just changed their coats are very 
 handsome, but the violet and indigo of a lob- 
 ster's coat is nothing to the brilliant sky-blue 
 of a Snap-Dragon. 
 
MEN SIELDEN SIN TANSHED. IQ/ 
 
 How they leaped about ! They were for ever 
 leaping over each other^ like seals at play. But 
 if it was *'play " at all with them, it was of a 
 very rough kind ; for as they jumped, they 
 snapped and barked at each other, and their 
 barking was like that of the barking Gnu in the 
 Zoological Gardens ; and from time to time 
 they tore the hair out of each other's heads 
 with their claws, and scattered it about the 
 floor. And as it dropped it was like the flecks 
 of flame people shake from their fingers when 
 they are eating snap-dragon raisins. 
 
 Harry stood aghast. 
 
 " What fun ! " said a voice close by him ; and 
 he saw that one of the Dragons was lying near, 
 and not joining in the game. He had lost one 
 of the forks of his tongue by accident, and 
 could not bark for awhile. 
 
 "I'm glad you think it funny," said Harry, 
 "I don't." 
 
 "That's right. Snap away!" sneered the 
 Dragon. " You're a perfect treasure. They'll 
 take you in with them the third round." 
 
198 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 " Not those creatures ? " cried Harry. 
 
 "Yes, those creatures. And if I hadn't lost 
 my bark, I'd be the first to lead you off," said 
 the Dragon. *'0h, the game will exactly suit 
 you." 
 
 "What is it, please .''" Harry asked. 
 
 " You'd better not say * please ' to the 
 others," said the Dragon, "if you don't want 
 to have all your hair pulled out. The game is 
 this. You have always to be jumping over 
 somebody else, and you must either talk or 
 bark. If anybody speaks to you, you must 
 snap in return. I need not explain what 
 snapping is. You know. If anyone by acci- 
 dent gives a civil answer, a claw-full of hair is 
 torn out of his head to stimulate his brain. 
 Nothing can be funnier." 
 
 "I dare say it suits you capitally," said 
 Harry; "but I'm sure we shouldn't like it. I 
 mean men and women and children. It 
 wouldn't do for us at all." 
 
 " Wouldn't it } " said the Dragon. " You 
 
(199) 
 
200 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 # 
 
 don't know how many human beings dance 
 with dragons on Christmas Eve. If we are 
 kept going in a house till after midnight, we 
 can pull people out of their beds, and take 
 them to dance in Vesuvius." 
 
 "Vesuvius ! " cried Harry. 
 
 " Yes, Vesuvius. We come from Italy origi- 
 nally, you know. Our skins are the color of 
 the Bay of Naples. We live on dried grapes 
 and ardent spirits. We have glorious fun in 
 the mountain sometimes. Oh ! what snapping, 
 and scratching, and tearing ! Delicious ! There 
 are times when the squabbling becomes too 
 great, and Mother Mountain won't stand it, 
 and spits us all out, and throws cinders after 
 us. But this is only at times. We had a 
 charming meeting last year. So many human 
 beings, and how they can snap ! It was a 
 choice party. So very select. We always 
 have plenty of saucy children, and servants. 
 Husbands and wives too, and quite as many of 
 the former as the latter, if not more. But 
 
GOOD WITS WILL STILL BE JANGLING. 201 
 
 besides these, we had two vestry-men, a coun- 
 try post-master, who devoted his talents to 
 insulting the public instead of to learning the 
 postal regulations, three cabmen and two 
 'fares,' two young shop-girls from a Berlin 
 wool shop in a town where there was no 
 competition, four commercial travellers, six 
 landladies, six Old Bailey lawyers, several 
 widows from almshouses, seven single gentle- 
 men and nine cats, who swore at everything; 
 a dozen sulphur-colored screaming cockatoos ; 
 a lot of street children from a town ; a pack of 
 mongrel curs from the colonies, who snapped 
 at the human beings' heels, and five elderly 
 ladies in their Sunday bonnets with Prayer- 
 books, who had been fighting for good seats in 
 church." 
 
 ** Dear me ! " said Harry. 
 
 ** If you can find nothing sharper to say than 
 *Dear me,'" said the Dragon, "you will fare 
 badly, I can tell you. Why, I thought you'd a 
 sharp tongue, but it's not forked yet, I see. 
 
202 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 Here they are, however. Off with you ! And 
 if you value your curls — Snap ! " 
 
 And before Harry could reply, the Snap- 
 Dragons came on on their third round, and 
 as they passed they swept Harry with them. 
 
 He shuddered as he looked at his com- 
 panions. They were as transparent as shrimps, 
 but of this lovely cerulean blue. And as they 
 leaped they barked — " Howf ! Howf ! " — like 
 barking Gnus ; and when they leaped Harry 
 had to leap with them. Besides barking, they 
 snapped and wrangled with each other ; and 
 in this Harry, must join also. 
 
 " Pleasant, isn't it ? " said one of the blue 
 Dragons. 
 
 " Not at all," snapped Harry. 
 
 "That's your bad taste," snapped the blue 
 Dragon. 
 
 " No, it's not ! " snapped Harry. 
 
 "Then it's pride and perverseness. You 
 want your hair combing." 
 
 " Oh, please don't ! " shrieked Harry, forget- 
 
THE DRAGON AND HIS WRATH. 203 
 
 ting himself. On which the Dragon clawed a 
 handful of hair out of his head, and Harry 
 screamed, and the blue Dragons barked and 
 danced. 
 
 "That made your hair curl, didn't it.?" 
 asked another Dragon, leaping over Harry. 
 
 "That's no business of yours," Harry 
 snapped, as well as he could for crying. 
 
 " It's more my pleasure than business," 
 retorted the Dragon. 
 
 " Keep it to yourself, then," snapped Harry. 
 
 " I mean to share it with you, when I get 
 hold of your hair," snapped the Dragon. 
 
 " Wait till you get the chance," Harry 
 snapped, with desperate presence of mind. 
 
 "Do you know whom you're talking to.?" 
 roared the Dragon ; and he opened his mouth 
 from ear to ear, and shot out his forked tongue 
 in Harry's face ; and the boy was so frightened 
 that he forgot to snap, and cried piteously, 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon, please don't ! " 
 
 On which the blue Dragon clawed another 
 
204 ' SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 handful of hair out of his head, and all the 
 Dragons barked as before. 
 
 How long the dreadful game went on Harry 
 never exactly knew. Well practised as he was 
 in snapping in the nursery, he often failed to 
 think of a retort, and paid for his unreadiness 
 by the loss of his hair. Oh, how foolish and 
 wearisome all this rudeness and snapping now 
 seemed to him ! But on he had to go, wonder- 
 ing all the time how near it was to twelve 
 o'clock, and whether the Snap-Dragons would 
 stay till midnight and take him with them to 
 Vesuvius. 
 
 At last, to his joy, it became evident that the 
 brandy was coming to an end. The Dragons 
 moved slower, they could not leap so high, and 
 at last one after another they began to go out. 
 
 " Oh, if they only all of them get away before 
 twelve ! " thought poor Harry. 
 
 At last there was only one. He and Harry 
 jumped about and snapped and barked, and 
 Harry was thinking with joy that he was the 
 
THE TIME AND THE HOUR. 205 
 
 last, when the clock in the hall gave that whir- 
 ring sound which some clocks do before they 
 strike, as if it were clearing its throat. 
 
 '' Oh, please go ! " screamed Harry in despair. 
 
 The blue Dragon leaped up, and took such a 
 clawful of hair out of the boy's head, that it 
 seemed as if part of the skin went too. But 
 that leap was his last. He went out at once, 
 vanishing before the first stroke of twelve. 
 And Harry was left on his face on the floor in 
 the darkness. 
 
206 
 
 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 v7*r HEN his friends found him there was 
 blood on his forehead. Harry thought it was 
 where the Dragon had clawed him, but they 
 said it was a cut from a fragment of the broken 
 brandy bottle. The Dragons had disappeared 
 as completely as the brandy. 
 
 Harry was cured of snapping. He had had 
 quite enough of it for a lifetime, and the catch- 
 contradictions of the household now made him 
 shudder. Polly had not had the benefit of his 
 experiences, and yet she improved also. 
 
TOO OLD TO LEARN. 20/ 
 
 In the first place, snapping, like other kinds 
 of quarrelling, requires two parties to it, and 
 Harry would never be a party to snapping any 
 more. And when he gave civil and kind an- 
 swers to Polly's smart speeches, she felt 
 ashamed of herself, and did not repeat them. 
 
 In the second place, she heard about the 
 Snap-Dragons. Harry told all about it to her 
 and to the hot-tempered gentleman. 
 
 "Now do you think it's true.?" Polly asked 
 the hot-tempered gentleman. 
 
 " Hum ! Ha ! " said he, driving his hands 
 through his hair. " You know I warned you, 
 you were going to the Snap-Dragons." 
 
 Harry and Polly snubbed "the little ones" 
 when they snapped, and utterly discountenanced 
 snapping in the nursery. The example and 
 admonitions of elder children are a powerful 
 instrument of nursery discipline, and before 
 long there was not a " sharp tongue " amongst 
 all the little Skratdjs. 
 
208 SNAP-DRAGONS. 
 
 But I doubt if the parents ever were cured. 
 I don't know if they heard the story. Besides, 
 bad habits are not easily cured when one is old. 
 
 I fear Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj have yet got to 
 dance with the Dragons. 
 
OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 An OLD-FASHioNi|D Tale of the Young Days of a 
 Grumpy Old Godfather. 
 
 3j«« 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Can you fancy, young people," said God- 
 father Garbel, winking with his prominent eyes, 
 and moving his feet backwards and forwards 
 in his square shoes, so that you could hear the 
 squeak-leather half a room off — " can you 
 fancy my having been a very little boy, and hav- 
 ing a godmother ? But I had, and she sent me 
 presents on my birthdays too. And young 
 people did not get presents when I was a child 
 as they get them now. Gritmph ! We had not 
 half so many toys as you have, but we kept 
 (209) 
 
2IO OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 them twice as long. I think we were fonder of 
 them too, though they were neither so hand- 
 some, nor so expensive as these new-fangled 
 affairs you are always breaking about the house. 
 Grumph! 
 
 " You see, middle-class folk were more saving 
 then. My mother turned and dyed her dresses, 
 and when she had done with them, the servant 
 was very glad to have them ; but, bless me ! 
 your mother's maids dress so much finer than 
 their mistress, I do not think they would say 
 * thank you ' for her best Sunday silk. The 
 bustle's the wrong shape. Gnimph ! 
 
 " What's that you are laughing at, little miss } 
 It's pannier^ is it } Well, well, bustle or pan- 
 nier, call it what you like ; but only donkeys 
 wore panniers in my young days, and many's 
 the ride I've had in them. 
 
 " Now as I say, my relations and friends 
 thought twice before they pulled out five shil- 
 lings in a toy shop, but they didn't forget me, 
 all the same. 
 
BIRTHDAY GIFTS. 
 
 211 
 
 ** On my eighth birthday my mother gave me 
 a bright blue comforter of her own knitting. 
 " My httle sister gave me a ball. My mother 
 
 had cut out the divisions from various bits in 
 the rag bag, and my sister had done some of the 
 seaming. It was stuffed with bran, and had a 
 
212 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 cork inside which had broken from old age, and 
 would no longer fit the pickle jar it belonged to. 
 This made the ball bound when we played 
 ' prisoner's base.' 
 
 '* My father gave me the broken driving-whip 
 that had lost the lash, and an old pair of his 
 gloves, to play coachman with ; these I had 
 long wished for, since next to sailing in a ship, in 
 my ideas, came the honor and glory of driving a 
 coach. 
 
 "My whole soul, I must tell you, was set 
 upon being a sailor. In those days I had 
 rather put to sea once on Farmer Fodder's 
 duck-pond than ride twice atop of his hay- 
 wagon ; and between the smell of hay and the 
 softness of it, and the height you are up above 
 other folk, and the danger of tumbling off if you 
 don't look out — for hay is elastic as well as 
 soft — you don't easily beat a ride on a hay- 
 wagon for pleasure. But as I say, I'd rather 
 put to sea on the duck-pond, though the best 
 craft I could borrow was the pigstye-door, and a 
 
THE MURMUR OF THE SHELL. 21 3 
 
 pole to punt with, and the village boys jeering 
 when I got aground, which was most of the 
 time — besides the duck-pond never having a 
 wave on it worth the name, punt as you would, 
 and so shallow you could not have got drowned 
 in it to save your life. 
 
 ** You're laughing now, little master, are you ? 
 But let me tell you that drowning's the death 
 for a sailor, whatever you may think. So I've 
 always maintained, and have given every navi- 
 gable sea in the known world a chance, though 
 here I am after all, laid up in arm-chairs and 
 feather-beds, to wait for bronchitis or some 
 other slow poison. Griimph ! 
 
 " Well, we must all go as we're called, sailors 
 or landsmen, and as I was saying, if I was never 
 to sail a ship, I would have liked to drive a 
 coach. A mail coach, serving His Majesty (Her 
 Majesty now God bless her !) carrying the Royal 
 Arms, and bound to go, rough weather and fair. 
 Many's the time I've done it (in play you under- 
 stand) with that whip and those gloves. Dear ! 
 
214 ^LD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 dear ! The pains I took to teach my sister Patty 
 to be a highwayman, and jump out on me from 
 the drying ground hedge in the dusk with a 
 ' Stand and dehver ! ' which she couldn't get out 
 of her throat for fright, and wouldn't jump hard 
 enough for fear of hurting me. 
 
 "The whip and the gloves gave me joy, I can 
 tell you ; but there was more to come. 
 
 " Kitty the servant gave me a shell that she 
 had had by her for years. How I had coveted 
 that shell ! It had this remarkable property : 
 when you put it to your ear you could hear the 
 roaring of the sea. I had never seen the sea, 
 but Kitty was born in a fisherman's cottage, 
 and many an hour have I sat by the kitchen 
 fire whilst she told me strange stories of the 
 mighty ocean, and ever and anon she would 
 snatch the shell from the mantlepiece and clap 
 it to my ear, crying, ' There child, you couldn't 
 hear it plainer than that. It's the very moral ! ' 
 
 " When Kitty gave me that shell for my very 
 own I felt that life had little more to offer. I 
 
GUY FAWKES. 21 5 
 
 held it to every ear in the house, including the 
 cat's ; and, seeing Dick the sexton's son go by 
 with an armful of straw to stuff Guy Fawkes, 
 I ran out, and in my anxiety to make him share 
 the treat, and learn what the sea is like, I 
 clapped the shell to his ear so smartly and 
 unexpectedly, that he, thinking me to have 
 struck him, knocked me down then and there 
 with his bundle of straw. When he understood 
 the rights of the case, he begged my pardon 
 handsomely, and gave me two whole treacle 
 sticks and part of a third out of his breeches' 
 pocket, in return for which I forgave him freely, 
 and promised to let him hear the sea roar on 
 every Saturday half-holiday till farther notice. 
 
 *'And, speaking of Dick and the straw 
 reminds me that my birthday falls on the fifth 
 of November. From this it came about that I 
 always had to bear a good many jokes about 
 being burnt as a Guy Fawkes ; but, on the 
 other hand, I was allowed to make a small 
 bonfire of my own, and to have eight potatoes 
 
2l6 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 to roast therein, and eight-pennyworth of 
 crackers to let off in the evening. A potato 
 and a pennyworth of crackers for every year of 
 my life. 
 
 " On this eighth birthday, having got all the 
 above-named gifts, I cried, in the fulness of my 
 heart, ' There never was such a day ! ' And 
 yet there was more to come, for the evening 
 coach brought me a parcel, and the parcel was 
 my godmother's picture-book. 
 
 ** My godmother was a gentlewoman of small 
 means ; but she was accomplished. She could 
 make very spirited sketches, and knew how to 
 color them after they were outlined and shaded 
 in Indian ink. She had a pleasant talent for 
 versifying. She was very industrious. I have 
 it from her own lips that she copied the figures 
 in my picture-book from prints in several dif- 
 ferent houses at which she visited. They were 
 fancy portraits of characters, most of which 
 were familiar to my mind. There were Guy 
 Fawkes, Punch, his then Majesty the King, 
 
GODMOTHERS PICTURE-BOOK, 21/ 
 
 Bogy, the Man in the Moon, the Clerk of the 
 Weather Office, a Dunce, and Old Father 
 Christmas. Beneath each sketch was a stanza 
 of my godmother's own composing. 
 
 " My godmother was very ingenious. She 
 had been mainly guided in her choice of these 
 characters by the prints she happened to meet 
 with, as she did not trust herself to design a 
 figure. But if she could not get exactly what 
 she wanted, she had a clever knack of tracing 
 an outline of the attitude from some engraving, 
 and altering the figure to suit her purpose in 
 the finished sketch. She was the soul of truth- 
 fulness, and the notes she added to the index 
 of contents in my picture-book spoke at once 
 for her honesty in avowing obligations, and her 
 ingenuity in availing herself of opportunities. 
 
 "They ran thus : — 
 
 No. I . — Guy Fawkes. Outlined from a figure of a 
 warehouseman rolling a sherry cask into Mr. Rudd's wine 
 vaults. I added the hat, cloak, and boots in the finished 
 drawing. 
 
2l8 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 No. 2. — Punch. I sketched him from the life. 
 
 No. 3. — His Most Gracious Majesty the King. 
 On a quart jug bought in Cheapside. 
 
 No. 4. — Bogy, with bad boys in the bag on his back. 
 Outlined from Christian bending under his burden, in my 
 mother's old copy of the "Pilgrim's Progress." The face 
 from Giant Despair. 
 
 No. 5 and No. 6. — The Man in the Moon, and The 
 Clerk of the Weather Office. From a book of 
 caricatures belonging^ to Dr. James. 
 
 No. 7. — A Dunce. From a steel engraving framed in 
 rosewood that hangs in my Uncle Wilkinson's parlor. 
 
 No. 8. — Old Father Christmas. From a German 
 book at Lady Littleham's. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 "My sister Patty was six years old. We 
 
 loved each other dearly. The picture-book was 
 
 almost as much hers as mine. We sat so long 
 
 together on one big footstool by the fire, with 
 
 our arms round each other, and the book resting 
 
 on our knees, that Kitty called down blessings 
 (219) 
 
220 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 on my godmother's head for having sent a 
 volume that kept us both so long out of mischief. 
 
 " ' If books was alius as useful as that, they'd 
 do for me,' said she ; and though this speech 
 did not mean much, it was a great deal for 
 Kitty to say ; since, not being herself an edu- 
 cated person, she naturally thought that 'little 
 enough good comes of larning.' 
 
 " Patty and I had our favorites amongst the 
 pictures. Bogy, now, was a character one did 
 not care to think about too near bed-time. I was 
 tired of Guy Fawkes, and thought he looked 
 more natural made of straw, as Dick did him. 
 The Dunce was a little too personal ; but Old 
 Father Christmas took our hearts by storm ; 
 we had never seen anything Uke him, though 
 now-a-days you may get a plaster figure of him 
 in any toy-shop at Christmas-time, with hair 
 and beard like cotton-wool, and a Christmas- 
 tree in his hand. 
 
 "The custom of Christmas-trees came from 
 Germany. I can remember when they were 
 
NOVELTY ALWAYS APPEARS HANDSOME. 221 
 
 first introduced into England, and what won- 
 derful things we thought them. Now, every 
 village school has its tree, and the scholars 
 openly discuss whether the presents have been 
 'good,' or 'mean,' as compared with other trees 
 of former years. 
 
 "The first one that I ever saw I believed 
 to have come from good Father Christmas 
 himself; but little boys have grown too wise 
 now to be taken in for their own amusement. 
 They are not excited by secret and mysterious 
 preparations in the back drawing-room ; they 
 hardly confess to the thrill — which I feel to 
 this day — when the folding-doors are thrown 
 open, and amid the blaze of tapers. Mamma, 
 like a Fate, advances with her scissors to give 
 every one what falls to his lot. 
 
 " Well, young people, when I was eight 
 years old I had not seen a Christmas-tree, 
 and the first picture of one I ever saw was 
 the picture of that held by Old Father Christ- 
 mas in my godmother's picture-book. 
 
222 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 " ' What are those things on the tree ? ' I 
 asked. 
 
 " ' Candles/ said my father. 
 
 " * No, father, not the candles ; the other 
 things ? ' 
 
 "'Those are toys, my son.' 
 
 " ' Are they ever taken off ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, they are taken off, and given to the 
 children who stand round the tree.' 
 
 " Patty and I grasped each other by the 
 hand, and with one voice murmured, ' How kind 
 of Old Father Christmas ! ' 
 
 "By-and-by I asked, 'How old is Father 
 Christmas ? ' 
 
 " My father laughed, and said, ' One thousand 
 eight hundred and thirty years, child,' which 
 was then the year of our Lord, and thus one 
 thousand eight hundred and thirty years since 
 the first great Christmas Day. 
 
 " * He looks very old,' whispered Patty. 
 
 " And I, who was, for my age, what Kitty 
 called 'Bible-learned,' said thoughtfully, and 
 
ANNO DOMINI. 22$ 
 
 with some puzzledness of mind, * Then he's 
 older than Methuselah.' 
 
 "But my father had left the room, and did 
 not hear my difficulty. 
 
 " November and December went by, and 
 still the picture-book kept all its charm for 
 Patty and me; and we pondered on and loved 
 Old Father Christmas as children can love and 
 realize a fancy friend. To those who remember 
 the fancies of their childhood I need say no 
 more. 
 
 "Christmas week came, Christmas Eve came. 
 My father and mother were mysteriously and 
 unaccountably busy in the parlor (we had 
 only one parlor), and Patty and I were 
 not allowed to go in. We went into the 
 kitchen, but even here was no place of rest 
 for us. Kitty was *all over the place,' as she 
 phrased it, and cakes, mince pies, and puddings 
 were with her. As she justly observed, * There 
 was no place there for children and books to 
 sit with their toes in the fire, when a body 
 
224 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 wanted to be at the oven all along. The cat 
 was enough for her temper,' she added. 
 
 **As to puss, who obstinately refused to 
 take a hint which drove her out into the Christ- 
 mas frost, she returned again and again with 
 soft steps, and a stupidity that was, I think, 
 affected, to the warm hearth, only to fly at 
 intervals, like a football, before Kitty's hasty 
 slipper. 
 
 "We had more sense, or less courage. We 
 bowed to Kitty's behests, and went to the back 
 door. 
 
 " Patty and I were hardy children, and accus- 
 tomed to * run out ' in all weathers, without 
 much extra wrapping up. We put Kitty's 
 shawl over our two heads, and went outside. 
 I rather hoped to see something of Dick, for it 
 was holiday time ; but no Dick passed. He 
 was busy helping his father to bore holes in 
 the carved seats of the church, which were to 
 hold sprigs of holly for the morrow — that was 
 the idea of church decoration in my young 
 
CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR. 225 
 
 days. You have improved on your elders there, 
 young people, and I am candid enough to 
 allow it. Still, the sprigs of red and green 
 were better than nothing, and, like your lovely 
 wreaths and pious devices, they made one feel 
 as if the old black wood were bursting into life 
 and leaf again for very Christmas joy ! 
 
 "And, if one only knelt carefully, they did 
 not scratch his nose," added Godfather Garbel, 
 chuckling and rubbing his own, which was 
 large and rather red. 
 
 "Well," he continued, "Dick was busy, and 
 not to be seen. We ran across the little yard 
 and looked over the wall at the end to see if 
 we could see anything or anybody. From this 
 point there was a pleasant meadow field sloping 
 prettily away to a little hill about three-quarters 
 of a mile distant ; which, catching some fine 
 breezes from the moors beyond, was held to be 
 a place of cure for whooping-cough, or 'kink- 
 cough,' as it was vulgarly called. Up to the 
 top of this Kitty had dragged me, and carried 
 
226 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 Patty, when we were recovering from the com- 
 plaint, as I well remember. It was the only 
 * change of air ' we could afford, and I dare say 
 it did as well as if we had gone into badly- 
 drained lodgings at the seaside. 
 
 "This hill was now covered with snow, and 
 stood off against the gray sky. The white 
 fields looked vast and dreary in the dusk. The 
 only gay things to be seen were the red berries 
 on the holly hedge, in the little lane — which, 
 running by the end of our back-yard, led up to 
 the Hall — and a fat robin redbreast who was 
 staring at me. I was watching the robin, 
 when Patty, who had been peering out of her 
 corner of Kitty's shawl, gave a great jump that 
 dragged the shawl from our heads, and cried 
 
 '''Look!' 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LOOKED. 
 
 An old man 
 was coming 
 alongthelane. 
 His hair and 
 beard were as 
 white as cot- 
 ton-wool. He 
 
 had a face like the sort of apple that keeps well 
 
 in winter ; his coat was old and brown. There 
 
 was snow about him in patches, and he carried 
 
 a small fir-tree. 
 
 "The same conviction seized upon us both. 
 
 With one breath we exclaimed, * Hs Old Father 
 
 Christmas ! ' 
 
 " I know now that it was only an old man of 
 
 the place, with whom we did not happen to be 
 (227) 
 
228 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 acquainted, and that he was taking a little fir- 
 tree up to the Hall, to be made into a Christ- 
 mas-tree. He was a very good-humored old 
 fellow, and rather deaf, for which he made up 
 by smiling and nodding his head a good deal, 
 and saying, ' Aye, aye, to be sure ! ' at likely 
 intervals. 
 
 ** As he passed us and met our earnest gaze, 
 he smiled and nodded so affably, that I was 
 bold enough to cry, ' Good evening. Father 
 Christmas ! ' 
 
 " * Same to you ! ' said he, in a high-pitched 
 voice. 
 
 "*Then you are Father Christmas,' said 
 Patty. 
 
 " ' And a Happy New Year,' was Father 
 Christmas's reply, which rather put me out. 
 But he smiled in such a satisfactory manner, 
 that Patty went on, 'You're very old, aren't 
 you 1 ' 
 
 " * So I be, miss, so I be,' said Father Christ- 
 mas, nodding. 
 
" With one breath we exclaimed, ' Ifs Old Father 
 Christinas !'' " 
 
 (229) 
 
230 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 " ' Father says you're eighteen hundred and 
 thirty years old,' I muttered. 
 
 " ' Aye, aye, to be sure,' said Father Christ- 
 mas, ' I'm a long age.' 
 
 "A very long age, thought I, and I added, 
 ' You're nearly twice as old as Methuselah, you 
 know,' thinking that this might not have struck 
 him. 
 
 '' ' Aye, aye,' said Father Christmas ; but he 
 did not seem to think anything of it. After a 
 pause he held up the tree, and cried, * D'ye 
 know what this is, little miss } * 
 
 "'A Christmas-tree,' said Patty. 
 
 " And the old man smiled and nodded. 
 
 *' I leant over the wall and shouted, ' But 
 there are no candles.' 
 
 " ' By-and-by,' said Father Christmas, nod- 
 ding as before. ' When it's dark they'll all be 
 lighted up. That'll be a fine sight ! ' 
 
 *' ' Toys too, there'll be, won't there .? ' screamed 
 Patty. 
 
 ** Father Christmas nodded his head. ' And 
 sweeties,' he added, expressively. 
 
GAY HOPE IS THEIRS. 23 1 
 
 "I could feel Patty trembling, and my own 
 heart beat fast. The thought which agitated us 
 both, was this — 'Was Father Christmas bring- 
 ing the tree to us } ' But very anxiety, and 
 some modesty also, kept us from asking out- 
 right. 
 
 " Only when the old man shouldered his tree, 
 and prepared to move on, I cried in despair, 
 *0h, are you going.-*' 
 
 " ' I'm coming back by-and-by,' said he. 
 
 " ' How soon } ' cried Patty. 
 
 « 
 
 " ' About four o'clock,' said the old man, 
 smiHng, 'I'm only going up yonder.' 
 
 "And, nodding and smiling as he went, he 
 passed away down the lane. 
 
 " ' Up yonder.' This puzzled us. Father 
 Christmas had pointed, but so indefinitely, that 
 he might have been pointing to the sky, or the 
 fields, or the little wood at the end of the 
 Squire's grounds. I thought the latter, and 
 suggested to Patty that perhaps he had some 
 place underground, like Aladdin's cave, where 
 
232 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 he got the candles, and all the pretty things for 
 the tree. This idea pleased us both, and we 
 amused ourselves by wondering what Old Father 
 Christmas would choose for us from his stores 
 in that wonderful hole where he dressed his 
 Christmas-trees. 
 
 "'I wonder, Patty,' said I, 'why there's no 
 picture of Father Christmas's dog in the book.' 
 For at the old man's heels in the lane there 
 crept a little brown and white spaniel, looking 
 very dirty in the snow. 
 
 " Perhaps it's a new dog that he's got to take 
 care of his cave,' said Patty. 
 
 "When we went indoors we examined the 
 picture afresh by the dim light from the pas- 
 sage window, but there was no dog there. 
 
 " My father passed us at this moment, and 
 patted my head. * Father,' said I, ' I don't 
 know, but I do think Old Father Christmas is 
 going to bring lis a Christmas-tree to-night..' 
 
 " * Who's been telling you that } ' said my 
 father. But he passed on before I could ex- 
 
BY FANCY FED. 233 
 
 plain that we had seen Father Christmas him- 
 self, and had had his word for it that he would 
 return at four o'clock, and that the candles on 
 his tree would be lighted as soon as it was dark. 
 
 " We hovered on the outskirts of the rooms 
 till four o'clock came. We sat on the stairs 
 and watched the big clock, which I was just 
 learning to read ; and Patty made herself giddy 
 with constantly looking up and counting the 
 four strokes, towards which the hour hand 
 slowly moved. We put our noses into the 
 kitchen now and then, to smell the cakes and 
 get warm, and anon we hung about the parlor 
 door, and were most unjustly accused of trying 
 to peep. What did we care what our mother 
 was doing in the parlor .? — we who had seen 
 Old Father Christmas himself, and were ex- 
 pecting him back every moment ! 
 
 " At last the church clock struck. The 
 sounds boomed heavily through the frost, and 
 Patty thought there were four of them. Then, 
 after due choking and whirring, our own clock 
 
234 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 struck, and we counted the strokes quite clearly 
 — one ! two ! three ! four ! Then we got 
 Kitty's shawl once more, and stole out into the 
 back-yard. We ran to our old place, and 
 peeped, but could see nothing. 
 
 '"We'd better get up on to the wall,' I said ; 
 and with some difficulty and distress from rub- 
 bing her bare knees against the cold stones, 
 and getting the snow up her sleeves, Patty got 
 on the coping of the little wall. I was just 
 struggling after her, when something warm and 
 something cold coming suddenly against the 
 bare calves of my legs, made me shriek with 
 fright. I came down ' with a run,' and bruised 
 my knees, my elbows, and my chin ; and the 
 snow that hadn't gone up Patty's sleeves, went 
 down my neck. Then I found that the cold 
 thing was a dog's nose, and the warm thing was 
 his tongue ; and Patty cried from her post of 
 observation, * It's Father Christmas's dog, and 
 he's licking your legs.' 
 
 " It really was the dirty little brown and white 
 
LOVE. 235 
 
 spaniel ; and he persisted in licking me, and 
 jumping on me, and making curious little 
 noises, that must have meant something if one 
 had known his language. I was rather harassed 
 at the moment. My legs were sore, I was a 
 little afraid of the dog, and Patty was very much 
 afraid of sitting on the wall without me. 
 
 " ' You won't fall,' I said to her. ' Get down, 
 will you } ' I said to the dog. 
 
 " ' Humpty Dumpty fell off a wall,' said 
 Patty. 
 
 " ' Bow ! wow ! ' said the dog. 
 
 *' I pulled Patty down, and the dog tried to 
 pull me down ; but when my little sister was on 
 her feet, to my relief he transferred his atten- 
 tions to her. When he had jumped at her, and 
 licked her several times, he turned round and 
 ran away. 
 
 " * He's gone,' said I ; ' I'm so glad.' 
 
 **But even as I spoke he was back again, 
 crouching at Patty's feet, and glaring at her 
 with eyes the color of his ears. 
 
236 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 " Now Patty was very fond of animals, and 
 when the dog looked at her she looked at the 
 dog, and then she said to me, ' He wants us to 
 go with him.' 
 
 "On which (as if he understood our language, 
 though we were ignorant of his) the spaniel 
 sprang away, and went off as hard as he could ; 
 and Patty and I went after him, a dim hope 
 crossing my mind — ' Perhaps Father Christ- 
 mas has sent for us.' 
 
 " This idea was rather favored by the fact that 
 the dog led us up the lane. Only a little way ; 
 then he stopped by something lying in the 
 ditch — and once more we cried in the same 
 breath, 'It's Old Father Christmas!* 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ETURNING from 
 the Hall, the old man 
 had slipped 
 upon a bit of 
 ice, and lay 
 stunned in 
 the snow. 
 
 "Patty be- 
 gan to cry. 
 
 * I think he's dead,' she sobbed. 
 
 " ' He is so very old, I don't wonder,' I mur- 
 mured ; 'but perhaps he's not. I'll fetch 
 Father.' 
 
 *' My father and Kitty were soon on the spot. 
 Kitty was as strong as a man ; and they car- 
 ried Father Christmas between them into the 
 kitchen. There he quickly revived. 
 (237) 
 
238 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 "I must do Kitty the justice to say that she 
 did not utter a word of complaint at this dis- 
 turbance of her labors ; and that she drew the 
 old man's chair close up to the oven with her 
 own hand. She was so much affected by the 
 behavior of his dog, that she admitted him 
 even to the hearth ; on which puss, being acute 
 enough to see how matters stood, lay down 
 with her back so close to the spaniel's that 
 Kitty could not expel one without kicking both. 
 
 "For our parts, we felt sadly anxious about 
 the tree ; otherwise we could have wished for 
 no better treat than to sit at Kitty's round table 
 taking tea with Father Christmas. Our usual 
 fare of thick bread and treacle was to-night 
 exchanged for a delicious variety of cakes, 
 which were none the worse to us for being 
 'tasters and wasters' — that is, little bits of 
 dough, or shortbread, put in to try the state of 
 the oven, and certain cakes that had got broken 
 or burnt in the baking. 
 
 *'Well, there we sat, helping Old Father 
 
CHRISTMAS TEA. 239 
 
 Christmas to tea and cake, and wondering in 
 our hearts what could have become of the tree. 
 But you see, young people, when I was a child, 
 parents were stricter than they are now. Even 
 before Kitty died (and she has been dead many 
 a long year) there was a change, and she said 
 that 'children got to think anything became 
 them.' I think we were taught more honest 
 shame about certain things than I often see in 
 little boys and girls now. We were ashamed 
 of boasting, or being greedy, or selfish; we 
 were ashamed of asking for anything that was 
 not offered to us, and of interrupting grown-up 
 people, or talking about ourselves. Why, 
 papas and mammas now-a-days seem quite 
 proud to let their friends see how bold and 
 greedy and talkative their children can be ! 
 A lady said to me the other day, ' You wouldn't 
 believe, Mr. Garbel, how forward dear little 
 Harry is for his age. He has his word in 
 everything, and is not a bit shy ! and his papa 
 never comes home from town but Harry runs 
 
240 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 to ask if he's brought him a present. Papa 
 says he'll be the ruin of him ! ' 
 
 " * Madam,' said I, ' even without your word 
 for it, I arr^ quite aware that your child is for- 
 ward. He is forward and greedy and intrusive, 
 as you justly point out, and I wish you joy of 
 him when those qualities are fully developed. 
 I think his father's fears are well founded.' 
 
 " But, bless me ! now-a-days, it's ' Come and 
 tell Mr. Smith what a fine boy you are, and 
 how many houses you can build with your 
 bricks,' or, 'The dear child wants everything 
 he sees,' or, ' Little pet never lets Mamma alone 
 for a minute; does she, love.?' But in my 
 young days it was, * Self-praise is no recom- 
 mendation' (as Kitty used to tell me), or, 
 * You're knocking too hard at No. One ' (as my 
 father said when we talked about ourselves), or, 
 ' Little boys should be seen but not heard ' (as a 
 rule of conduct *in company'), or, 'Don't ask 
 for what you want, but take what's given you 
 and be thankful.' 
 
CHRISTMAS TREE. 24 T 
 
 "And SO you see, young people, Patty and I 
 felt a delicacy in asking Old Father Christmas 
 about the tree. It was not till we had had tea 
 three times round, with tasters and wasters to 
 match, that Patty said very gently, 'It's quite 
 dark now.' And then she heaved a deep sigh. 
 
 "Burning anxiety overcame me. I leant 
 towards Father Christmas, and shouted — I had 
 found out that it was needful to shout, — 
 
 " ' I suppose the candles are on the tree 
 now ? ' 
 
 "'Just about putting of 'em on,' said Father 
 Christmas. 
 
 "'And the presents, too.^' said Patty. 
 
 "'Aye, aye, to be sure,' said Father Christ- 
 mas, and he smiled delightfully. 
 
 " I was thinking what farther questions I 
 might venture upon, when he pushed his cup 
 towards Patty, saying, ' Since you are so press- 
 ing, miss, I'll take another dish.' 
 
 " And Kitty, swooping on us from the oven, 
 cried, 'Make yourself at home, sir; there's 
 
242 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 more where these came from. Make a long 
 arm, Miss Patty, and hand them cakes.' 
 
 " So we had to devote ourselves to the duties 
 of the table; and Patty, holding the lid with 
 one hand and pouring with the other, sup- 
 plied Father Christmas' s wants with a heavy 
 heart. 
 
 "At last he was satisfied. I said grace, 
 during which he stood, and indeed he stood for 
 some time afterwards with his eyes shut — I 
 fancy under the impression that I was still 
 speaking. He had just said a fervent 'Amen,' 
 and reseated himself, when my father put his 
 head into the kitchen, and made this remarkable 
 statement, — 
 
 "'Old Father Christmas has sent a tree to 
 the young people.' 
 
 " Patty and I uttered a cry of delight, and we 
 forthwith danced round the old man, saying, 
 * Oh, how nice ! Oh, how kind of you ! ' which 
 I think must have bewildered him, but he only 
 smiled and nodded. 
 
HOPE IS THE DREAM. 243 
 
 "*Come along,' said my father. 'Come, 
 children. Come, Reuben. Come, Kitty.' 
 
 "And he went into the parlor, and we all 
 followed him. 
 
 " My godmother's picture of a Christmas-tree 
 was very pretty ; and the flames of the candles 
 were so naturally done in red and yellow, that 
 I always wondered that they did not shine at 
 night. But the picture was nothing to the 
 reality. We had been sitting almost in the 
 dark, for, as Kitty said, 'Firelight was quite 
 enough to burn at meal-times.' And when the 
 parlor door was thrown open, and the tree, with 
 lighted tapers on all the branches, burst upon 
 our view, the blaze was dazzling, and threw 
 such a glory round the little gifts, and the bags 
 of colored muslin with acid drops, and pink rose 
 drops, and comfits inside, as I shall never 
 forget. We all got something ; and Patty and 
 I, at any rate, believed that the things came 
 from the stores of Old Father Christmas. We 
 were not undeceived even by his gratefully 
 
244 OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS. 
 
 accepting a bundle of old clothes which had 
 been hastily put together to form his present. 
 
 " We were all very happy ; even Kitty, I 
 think, though she kept her sleeves rolled up, 
 and seemed rather to grudge enjoying herself 
 (a weak point in some energetic characters). 
 She went back to her oven before the lights 
 were out, and the angel on the top of the tree 
 taken down. She locked up her present (a 
 little work-box) at once. She often showed it 
 off afterwards, but it was kept in the same bit 
 of tissue paper till she died. Our presents 
 certainly did not last so long ! 
 
 "The old man di^ about a week afterwards, 
 so we never made his acquaintance as a com- 
 mon personage. When he was buried, his little 
 dog came to us. I suppose he remembered the 
 hospitality he had received. Patty adopted 
 him, and he was very faithful. Puss always 
 looked on him with favor. I hoped during our 
 rambles together in the following summer that 
 he would lead us at last to the cave where 
 
OF THE WAKING. 245 
 
 Christmas-trees are dressed. But he never 
 did. 
 
 '' Our parents often spoke of his late master 
 as ' old Reuben,' but children are not easily 
 disabused of a favorite fancy, and in Patty's 
 thoughts and in mine the old man was long 
 gratefully remembered as Old Father Christ- 
 mas." 
 
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