Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

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 Lingborough 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 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 pursued 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 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 sunset. A dozen tales of such were rife, and folk 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 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 wheel-barrow was afterwards found in Miss Betty’s farmyard, 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.

The lay-away hen’s eggs were brought regularly 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.

The cart-wheels and gate-hinges were oiled by unseen fingers.

The mushrooms in the croft gathered themselves 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. Annie, 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 folk 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 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, you might look out for palsy or St. Vitus’s dance, or to be carried off bodily to the underground folk.

Finally, that it was well that all the cows gave double, for that Lob Lie-by-the-fire drank two 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?

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 evening in this eventful summer.

Death had made a gap or two in the familiar circle during the last fourteen years, but otherwise it was quite the same except that the lawyer 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 rosewood piano than had been shaken out of it 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 _not in debt_.”

“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 lawyer, “I’m not talking 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 astonished 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 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 servant——”

And the parson, threading his way to where Mrs. Dunmaw’s china crape shawl (dyed crimson) shone in the bow window, said, “The clergy should keep respectable hours; 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?”

THE PARSON AND THE LUBBER-FIEND.

“Do you think there’d be any harm in leaving it alone, sister Betty?” asked Miss Kitty, tremulously.

They had reached Lingborough, and the parson had come in with them, by Miss Betty’s request, and Thomasina had been duly examined:

“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 Kitty, “you always are; but oh dear, oh dear!”—

“Thomasina tells me,” said Miss Betty, turning 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, 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-grandfather’s fortunes, and we leave it entirely to your valuable discretion to pursue what course you think proper on the occasion.”

“Is this the door?” said the parson, cheerfully, 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 unlucky 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 lattice window showed Lob lying by the fire.

“There’s his tail! Ay——k!” screeched Annie 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, screaming 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, Thomasina 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!”

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 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 spilt 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 imperfectly describe.

The desire to atone for the past which had led 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 perhaps 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 companion; and, as Miss Betty justly feared, of that “other side of the world,” which they both 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 master,” 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.

“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 looking like a fool. That, as a rule, he gossipped and shared his tobacco with sailors and fishermen, 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 faithful biographer must chronicle.

A regiment on the march would draw him from the ploughtail itself, and “With daddy to see the soldiers” was held to excuse any of Mrs. Broom’s children from household duties.

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 himself 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 McAlister, 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 vigilant oversight of the farm-bailiff, who now exercised his natural severity almost exclusively 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 returned 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 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 that 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 Lingborough!”

TIMOTHY’S SHOES.

THE FAIRY GODMOTHER.

Timothy’s mother was very conscientious. When she was quite a young woman, just after the birth of her first baby, and long before Timothy saw the light, she was very much troubled about the responsibilities of having a family.

“Suppose,” she murmured, “they catch measles, whooping cough, chicken-pox, scarlatina, croup, or inflammation of the lungs, when I might have prevented it; and either die, or have weak eyes, weak lungs or a chronic sore throat to the end of their days. Suppose they have bandy legs from walking too soon, or crooked spines from being carried too long. Suppose, too, that they grow up bad—that they go wrong, do what one will to keep them right. Suppose I cannot afford to educate them properly, or that they won’t learn if I can afford to have them taught. Suppose that they die young, when I might have kept them alive; or live only to make me think they had better have died young. Oh dear, it’s a terrible responsibility having a family!”

“It’s too late to talk about that now, my dear,” said her godmother (a fairy godmother, too!); “the baby is a very fine boy, and if you will let me know when the christening-day is fixed, I will come and give him a present. I can’t be godmother, though; I’m too old, and you’ve talked about responsibilities till I’m quite alarmed.” With which the old lady kissed her goddaughter, and nearly put out the baby’s eye with the point of her peaked hat, after which she mounted her broomstick and rode away.

“A very fine boy,” continued the young mother. “Ah! that’s just where it is; if it had only been a girl I shouldn’t have felt so much afraid. Girls are easily managed. They have got consciences, and they mend their own clothes. You can make them work, and they can amuse themselves when they’re not working. Now with boys it is quite different. And yet I shouldn’t wonder if I have a large family of boys, just because I feel it to be such a responsibility.”

She was quite right. Years went by; one baby after another was added to the family, and they were all boys. “Twenty feet that want socks,” sighed the good woman, “and not a hand that can knit or darn!”

But we must go back to the first christening. The godmother arrived, dressed in plum-colored satin, with a small brown-paper parcel in her hand.

“Fortunatus’s purse!” whispered one of the guests, nudging his neighbor with his elbow. “The dear child will always be welcome in my poor establishment,” he added aloud to the mother.

“A mere trifle, my love,” said the fairy godmother, laying the brown-paper parcel beside her on the table and nodding kindly to her goddaughter.

“That means a mug,” said one of the godfathers, decidedly. “Rather shabby! I’ve gone as far as a knife, fork, and spoon myself.”

“Doubtless ’tis of the more precious metal,” said Dr. Dixon Airey, the schoolmaster (and this was his way of saying that it was a gold mug), “and not improbably studded with the glittering diamond. Let us not be precipitate in our conclusions.”

At this moment the fairy spoke again. “My dear goddaughter,” she began, laying her hand upon the parcel, “I have too often had reason to observe that the gift of beauty is far from invariably proving a benefit to its possessor.” (“I told you it was a purse,” muttered the guest.) “Riches,” continued the fairy, “are hardly a less doubtful boon; and the youth who is born to almost unlimited wealth is not always slow to become a bankrupt. Indeed, I fear that the experience of many centuries has almost convinced us poor fairies that extraordinary gifts are not necessarily blessings. This trifle,” she continued, beginning to untie the string of the parcel, “is a very common gift to come from my hands, but I trust it will prove useful.”

“There!” cried the godfather, “didn’t I say it was a mug? Common? Why there’s nothing so universal except, indeed, the knife, fork, and spoon.”

But before he had finished his sentence the parcel was opened, and the fairy presented the young mother with—_a small pair of strong leather shoes, copper tipped and heeled_. “They’ll never wear out, my dear,” she said; “rely upon it, you’ll find them a ‘mother’s blessing,’ and however large a family you may have, your children will step into one another’s shoes just at the age when little feet are the most destructive.” With which the old lady carefully wound the string on her finger into a neat twist, and folding the bit of brown paper put both in her pocket, for she was a very economical dame.

I will not attempt to describe the scandalized buzz in which the visitors expressed their astonishment at the meanness of the fairy’s gift. As for the young mother, she was a sensible, sweet-tempered woman, and very fond of her old godmother, so she set it down to a freak of eccentricity; and, dismissing a few ambitious day-dreams from her mind, she took the shoes, and thanked the old lady pleasantly enough.

When the company had departed, the godmother still lingered, and kissed her goddaughter affectionately. “If your children inherit your good sense and good temper, my love, they will need nothing an old woman like me can give them,” said she; “but, all the same, my little gift is not _quite_ so shabby as it looks. These shoes have another quality besides that of not wearing out. The little feet that are in them cannot very easily go wrong. If, when your boy is old enough, you send him to school in these shoes, should he be disposed to play truant, they will pinch and discomfit him so that it is probable he will let his shoes take him the right way; they will in like manner bring him home at the proper time. And——”

“Mrs. Godmother’s broomstick at the door!” shouted the farming man who was acting as footman on this occasion.

“Well, my dear,” said the old lady, “you will find out their virtues all in good time, and they will do for the whole family in turn; for I really can come to no more christenings. I am getting old—besides, our day is over. Farewell, my love.” And mounting her broomstick, the fairy finally departed.

KINGCUPS.

As years went by, and her family increased, the mother learned the full value of the little shoes. Her nine boys wore them in turn, but they never wore them out. So long as the fairy shoes were on their feet they were pretty sure to go where they were sent and to come back when they were wanted, which, as all parents know, is no light matter. Moreover, during the time that each boy wore them, he got into such good habits that he was thenceforward comparatively tractable. At last they descended to the ninth and youngest boy, and became—Timothy’s shoes.

Now the eighth boy had very small feet, so he had worn the shoes rather longer, and Timothy got them somewhat later than usual. Then, despite her conscientiousness, Timothy’s mother was not above the weakness of spoiling the youngest of the family; and so, for one reason or another, Master Timothy was wilful, and his little feet pretty well used to taking their own way before he stepped into the fairy shoes. But he played truant from the dame’s school and was late for dinner so often, that at length his mother resolved to bear it no longer; and one morning the leather shoes were brightly blacked and the copper tips polished, and Master Tim was duly shod, and dismissed to school with many a wise warning from his fond parent.

“Now, Tim, dear, I know you will be a good boy,” said his mother, a strong conviction that he would be no such thing pricking her conscience. “And mind you don’t loiter or play truant, for if you do, these shoes will pinch you horribly, and you’ll be sure to be found out.”

Tim’s mother held him by his right arm, and Tim’s left arm and both his legs were already as far away as he could stretch them, and Tim’s face looked just as incredulous as yours would look if you were told that there was a bogy in the store-closet who would avenge any attack upon the jam-pots with untold terrors. At last the good woman let go her hold, and Tim went off like an arrow from a bow, and he gave not one more thought to what his mother had said.

The past winter had been very cold, the spring had been fitful and stormy, and May had suddenly burst upon the country with one broad bright smile of sunshine and flowers. If Tim had loitered on the school path when the frost nipped his nose and numbed his toes, or when the trees were bare and the ground muddy, and the March winds crept up his jacket-sleeves, one can imagine the temptations to delay when every nook had a flower and every bush a bird. It is very wrong to play truant, but still it was very tempting. Twirr-r-r-r-r—up into the blue sky went the larks; hedge-birds chirped and twittered in and out of the bushes, the pale milkmaids opened their petals, and down in the dark marsh below the kingcups shone like gold.

Once or twice Tim loitered to pick milkmaids and white starflowers and speedwell; but the shoes pinched him, and he ran on all the more willingly that a newly fledged butterfly went before him. But when the path ran on above the marsh, and he looked down and saw the kingcups, he dismissed all thoughts of school. True, the bank was long and steep, but that only added to the fun. Kingcups he must have. The other flowers he flung away. Milkmaids are wan-looking at the best; starflowers and speedwell are ragged; but those shining things that he had not seen for twelve long months, with cups of gold and leaves like water-lilies—Tim flung his satchel on to the grass, and began to scramble down the bank. But though he turned his feet towards the kingcups, the shoes seemed resolved to go to school; and as he persisted in going towards the marsh, he suffered such twitches and twinges that he thought his feet must have been wrenched off. But Tim was a very resolute little fellow, and though his ankles bid fair to be dislocated at every step, he dragged himself, shoes and all, down to the marsh. And now, provokingly enough, he could not find a kingcup within reach; in very perversity, as it seemed, not one would grow on the safe edge, but, like so many Will-o’-the-wisps, they shone out of the depths of the treacherous bog. And as Tim wandered round the marsh, jerk, wrench—oh, dear! every step was like a galvanic shock. At last, desperate with pain and disappointment, he fairly jumped into a brilliant clump that looked tolerable near, and was at once ankle-deep in water. Then, to his delight, the wet mud sucked the shoes off his feet, and he waded about among the rushes, reeds, and kingcups, sublimely happy.

And he was none the worse, though he ought to have been. He moved about very cautiously, feeling his way with a stick from tussock to tussock of reedy grass, and wondering how his eight brothers had been so feeble-minded as never to think of throwing the obnoxious shoes into a bog and so getting rid of them once for all. True, in fairy stories, the youngest brother always does accomplish what his elders had failed to do: but fairy tales are not always true. At last Tim began to feel tired; he hurt his foot with a sharp stump. A fat yellow frog jumped up in his face and so startled him that he nearly fell backwards into the water. He was frightened, and had culled more kingcups than he could carry. So he scrambled out, and climbed the bank, and cleaned himself up as well as he could with a small cotton pocket handkerchief, and thought he would go on to school.

Now, with all his faults, Tim was no coward and no liar, so with a quaking heart and a stubborn face he made up his mind to tell the dame that he had played truant; but even when one has resolved to confess, the words lag behind, and Tim was still composing a speech in his mind, and had still got no farther than, “Please, ma’am,” when he found himself in the school and under the dame’s very eye.

But Tim heeded not her frown, nor the subdued titters of the children; his eyes were fixed on the schoolroom floor, where—in Tim’s proper place in the class—stood the little leather shoes, very muddy, and with a kingcup in each.

“You’ve been in the marsh, Timothy,” said the dame. “_Put on your shoes._”

It will be believed that when his punishment and his lessons were over, Tim allowed his shoes to take him quietly home.

THE SHOES AT SCHOOL.

When Timothy’s mother heard how he had been in the marsh, she decided to send him at once to a real boys’ school, as he was quite beyond dame’s management. So he went to live with Dr. Dixon Airey, who kept a school on the moors, assisted by one Usher, a gentleman who had very long legs and used very long words, and who wore common spectacles of very high power on work days, and green ones on Sundays and holidays.

And Timothy’s shoes went with him.

On the whole he liked being at school. He liked the boys, he did not hate Dr. Airey much, and he would have felt kindly towards the Usher but for certain exasperating circumstances. The Usher was accustomed to illustrate his lessons by examples from familiar objects, and as he naturally had not much imagination left after years of grinding at the rudiments of everything with a succession of lazy little boys, he took the first familiar objects that came to hand, and his examples were apt to be tame. Now though Timothy’s shoes were well-known in his native village, they created quite a sensation in Dr. Dixon Airey’s establishment, and the Usher brought them into his familiar examples till Timothy was nearly frantic. Thus: “If Timothy’s shoes cost 8_s._ 7_d._ without the copper tips, &c.” or, illustrating the genitive case, “Timothy’s shoes, or the shoes of Timothy,” or again: “The shoes. Of the shoes. To or for the shoes. The shoes. O shoes! By, with, or from the shoes.”

“I’ll run away by, with, or from the shoes shortly,” groaned Timothy, “see if I don’t. I can’t stand it any longer.”

“I wouldn’t mind it, if I were you,” returned Bramble minor. “They all do it. Look at the fellow who wrote the Latin Grammar! He looks around the schoolroom, and the first thing that catches his eyes goes down for the first declension, _forma_, a form. They’re all alike.”

But when the fruit season came round, and boys now and then smuggled cherries into school, which were forfeited by the Usher, he sometimes used these for illustrations instead of the shoes, thus (in the arithmetic class): “Two hundred and fifty-four cherries added to one thousand six hundred and seventy-five will make——?”

“A _very_ big pie!” cried Tim on one of these occasions. He had been sitting half asleep in the sunshine, his mind running on the coming enjoyments of the fruit season, cooked and uncooked; the Usher had appealed to him unexpectedly, and the answer was out of his lips before he could recollect himself. Of course he was sent to the bottom of the class; and the worst of going down in class for Timothy was that his shoes were never content to rest there. They pinched his poor feet till he shuffled them off in despair, and then they pattered back to his proper place where they stayed till, for very shame, Tim was obliged to work back to them: and if he kept down in his class for two or three days, for so long he had to sit in his socks, for the shoes always took the place that Tim ought to have filled.

But, after all, it was pleasant enough at that school upon the moors, from the time when the cat heather came out upon the hills to the last of the blackberries; and even in winter, when the northern snow lay deep, and the big dam was “safe” for skaters, and there was a slide from the Doctor’s gate to the village post-office—one steep descent of a quarter of a mile on the causeway, and as smooth as the glass mountain climbed by the princes in the fairy tale. Then Saturday was a half-holiday, and the boys were allowed to ramble off on long country walks, and if they had been particularly good they were allowed to take out Nardy.

This was the Doctor’s big dog, a noble fellow of St. Bernard breed. The Doctor called him Bernardus, but the boys called him Nardy.

Sometimes, too, the Usher would take one or two boys for a treat to the neighboring town, and when the Usher went out holidaying, he always wore the green spectacles, through which he never saw anything amiss, and indeed (it was whispered) saw very little at all.

Altogether Timothy would have been happy but for the shoes. They did him good service in many ways, it is true. When Timothy first came the little boys groaned under the tyranny of a certain big bully of whom all were afraid. One day when he was maltreating Bramble minor in a shameful and most unjust fashion, Timothy rushed at him and with the copper tips of his unerring shoes he kicked him so severely that the big bully did not get over it for a week, and no one feared him any more. Then in races, and all games of swift and skilful chase, Timothy’s shoes won him high renown. But they made him uncomfortable whenever he went wrong, and left him no peace till he went right, and he grumbled loudly against them.

“There is a right way and a wrong way in all sublunary affairs,” said the Usher. “Hereafter, young gentleman, you will appreciate your singular felicity in being incapable of taking the wrong course without feeling uncomfortable.”

“What’s the use of his talking like that?” said Timothy, kicking the bench before him with his “copper tips.” “I don’t want to go the wrong way, I only want to go my own way, that’s all.” And night and day he beat his brains for a good plan to rid himself of the fairy shoes.

THE SHOES AT CHURCH.

On Sunday, Dr. Dixon Airey’s school went to the old church in the valley. It was a venerable building with a stone floor, and when Dr. Dixon Airey’s young gentlemen came in they made such a clattering with their feet that everybody looked round. So the Usher very properly made a point of being punctual that they might not disturb the congregation.

The Usher always went to church with the boys, and he always wore his green spectacles. It has been hinted that on Sundays and holidays he was slow to see anything amiss. Indeed if he were directly told of misconduct he would only shake his head and say:

“_Humanum est errare_, my dear boy, as Dr. Kerchever Arnold truly remarks in one of the exercises.”

And the boys liked him all the better, and did not on the whole behave any the worse for this occasional lenity.

Four times in the year, on certain Sunday afternoons, the young people of the neighborhood were publicly catechised in the old church after the second lesson at Evening Prayer, and Dr. Dixon Airey’s young gentlemen with the rest. They all filed down on the nave in a certain order, and every boy knew beforehand which question and answer would fall to his share. Now Timothy’s mother had taught him the Catechism very thoroughly, and so on a certain Sunday he found that the lengthy answer to the question, “What is thy duty towards thy neighbor?” had been given to him. He knew it quite well; but a stupid, half-shy, and wholly aggravating fit came upon him, and he resolved that he would not stand up with the others to say his Catechism in church. So when they were about half-way there, Timothy slipped off unnoticed, and the Usher—all confidence and green spectacles—took the rest of the party on without him.

Oh, how the shoes pinched Tim’s feet as he ran away over the heather, and how Tim vowed in his heart never to rest till he got rid of them! At last the wrenching became so intolerable that Tim tore them off his feet, and kicked them for very spite. Fortunately for Tim’s shins the shoes did not kick back again, but they were just setting off after the Usher, when Tim snatched them up and put them in his pocket. At last he found among the gray rocks that peeped out of the heather and bracken, one that he could just move, and when he had pushed it back, he popped the shoes under it, and then rolled the heavy boulder back on them to keep them fast. After which he ate bilberries till his teeth were blue, and tried to forget the shoes and to enjoy himself. But he could hot do either.

As to the Usher, when he found that Timothy was missing, he was very much vexed; and when the Psalms were ended and still he had not come, the Usher took off his green spectacles and put them into his pocket. And Bramble minor, who came next to Timothy, kept his Prayer-Book open at the Church Catechism and read his Duty to his Neighbor instead of attending to the service. At last the time came, and all the boys filed down the nave. First the Parish schools and then Doctor Dixon Airey’s young gentlemen; and just as they took their places between Bramble minor and the next boy—in the spot where Timothy should have been—stood Timothy’s shoes.

After service the shoes walked home with the boys, and followed the Usher into Dr. Dixon Airey’s study.

“I regret, sir,” said the Usher, “I deeply regret to have to report to you that Timothy was absent from Divine worship this evening.”

“And who did his Duty to his Neighbor?” asked the Doctor, anxiously.

“Bramble minor, sir.”

“And how did he do it?” asked the Doctor.

“Perfectly, sir.”

“Mrs. Airey and I,” said the Doctor, “shall have much pleasure in seeing Bramble minor at tea this evening. I believe there are greengage turnovers. We hope also for the honor of _your_ company, sir,” added the Doctor. “And when Timothy retraces his erring steps, _tell him to come and fetch his shoes_.”

THE POOR PERSON.

I regret to say that the events just related only confirmed Timothy in his desire to get rid of his shoes. He took Bramble minor into his confidence, and they discussed the matter seriously after they went to bed.

What a gift it is to be able to dispose in one trenchant sentence of a question that has given infinite trouble to those principally concerned! Most journalists have this talent, and Bramble minor must have had some of it, for when Timothy had been stating his grievance in doleful and hopeless tones, his friend said:

“What’s the use of putting them under stones and leaving them in bogs? Give your shoes to some one who wants ’em, my boy, and they’ll be kept fast enough, you may be sure!”

“But where am I to find any one who wants them?” asked Timothy.

“Why, bless your life!” said Bramble minor, “go to the first poor person’s cottage you come to, and offer them to the first person you see. Strong shoes with copper tips and heels will not be refused in a hurry, and will be taken very good care of, you’ll find.”

With which Bramble minor rolled over in his little bed and went to sleep, and Timothy turned over in his, and thought what a thing it was to have a practical genius—like Bramble minor! And the first half-holiday he borrowed a pair of shoes, and put his own in his pocket, and set forth for the nearest poor person’s cottage.

He did not go towards the village (it was too public he thought); he went over the moors, and when he had walked about half a mile, down by a sandy lane just below him, he saw a poor person’s cottage. The cottage was so tumble-down and so old and inconvenient, there could be no doubt but that it belonged to a poor person, and to a very poor person indeed!

When Timothy first rapped at the door he could hear no answer, but after knocking two or three times he accepted a faint sound from within as a welcome, and walked into the cottage. Though more comfortable within than without, it was unmistakably the abode of a “poor person,” and the poor person himself was sitting crouched over a small fire, coughing after a manner that shook the frail walls of the cottage and his own frailer body. He was an old man and rather deaf.

“Good afternoon,” said Timothy, for he did not know what else to say.

“Good day to ye,” coughed the old man.

“And how are you this afternoon?” asked Tim.

“No but badly, thank ye,” said the old man; “but I’m a long age, and it’s what I mun expect.”

“You don’t feel as if a small pair of strong leather shoes would be of any use to you?” asked Tim in his ear.

“Eh? Shoes? It’s not many shoes I’m bound to wear out now. These’ll last my time, I expect. I’m a long age, sir. But thank ye kindly all the same.”

Tim was silent, partly because the object of his visit had failed, partly with awe of the old man, whose time was measured by the tattered slippers on his feet.

“You be one of Dr. Airey’s young gentlemen, I reckon,” said the old man at last. Tim nodded.

“And how’s the old gentleman? He wears well, do the Doctor. And I expect he’s a long age, too?”

“He’s about sixty, I believe,” said Timothy.

“I thowt he’d been better nor seventy,” said the old man, in almost an injured tone, for he did not take much interest in any one younger than threescore years and ten.

“Have you any children?” asked Tim, still thinking of the shoes.

“Four buried and four living,” said the old man.

“Perhaps _they_ might like a pair——” began Timothy; but the old man had gone on without heeding him.

“And all four on ’em married and settled, and me alone; for my old woman went Home twenty years back, come next fift’ o’ March.”

“I daresay you have grandchildren, then?” said Tim.

“Ay, ay. Tom’s wife’s brought him eleven, _so_ fur; and six on ’em boys.”

“They’re not very rich, I daresay,” said Tim.

“Rich!” cried the old man; “Why, bless ye, last year Tom were out o’ work six month, and they were a’most clemmed.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Tim; “and will you please give them these shoes? They’re sure to fit one of the boys, and they are very very strong leather, and copper-tipped and heeled, and——.”

But as Tim enumerated the merits of his shoes the old man tried to speak, and could not for a fit of coughing, and as he choked and struggled he put back the shoes with his hand. At last he found voice to gasp,—“Lor’, bless you, Tom’s in Osstraylee.”

“Whatever did he go there for?” cried Tim, impatiently, for he saw no prospect of getting rid of his tormentors.

“He’d nowt to do at home, and he’s doing well out yonder. He says he’ll send me some money soon, but I doubt it won’t be in time for my burying. I’m a long age,” muttered the old man.

Tim put the shoes in his pocket again, and pulled out a few coppers, the remains of his pocket-money. These the old man gratefully accepted, and Tim departed. And as he was late, he took off the borrowed shoes and put on his own once more, for they carried him quicker over the ground.

And so they were still Timothy’s shoes.

THE DIRTY BOY.

One day the Usher invited Timothy to walk to the town with him. It was a holiday. The Usher wore his green spectacles; Tim had a few shillings of pocket-money, and plums were in season. Altogether the fun promised to be good.

Timothy and the Usher had so much moor breeze and heather scents every day, that they quite enjoyed the heavier air of the valley and the smell and smoke of town life. Just as they entered the first street a dirty little boy, in rags and with bare feet, ran beside them, and as he ran he talked. And it was all about his own trouble and poverty, and hunger and bare feet, and he spoke very fast, with a kind of whine.

“I feel quite ashamed, Timothy,” said the Usher (who worked hard for twelve hours a day, and supported a blind mother and two sisters),—“I feel quite ashamed to be out holidaying when a fellow-creature is barefooted and in want.” And as he spoke the Usher gave a sixpence to the dirty little boy (who never worked at all, and was supported by kind people out walking). And when the dirty little boy had got the sixpence, he bit it with his teeth and rang it on the stones, and then danced catherine-wheels on the pavement till somebody else came by. But the Usher did not see this through his green spectacles.

And Timothy thought, “My shoes would fit that barefooted boy.”

After they had enjoyed themselves very much for some time, the Usher had to pay a business visit in the town, and he left Timothy to amuse himself alone for a while. And Timothy walked about, and at last he stopped in front of a bootmaker’s shop, and in the window he saw a charming little pair of boots just his own size. And when he turned away from the window, he saw something coming very fast along the pavement like the three legs on an Isle of Man halfpenny, and when it stood still it was the barefooted boy.

Then Timothy went into the shop, and bought the boots, and this took all his money to the last farthing.

And when he came out of the shop the dirty little boy was still there.

“Come here, my poor boy,” said Tim, speaking like a young gentleman out of ‘Sanford and Merton.’ “You look very poor, and your feet must be very cold.”

The dirty boy whined afresh, and said his feet were so bad he could hardly walk. They were frost-bitten, sun-blistered, sore, and rheumatic; and he expected shortly to become a cripple like his parents and five brothers, all from going barefoot. And Timothy stooped down and took off the little old leather shoes.

“I will give you these shoes, boy,” said he, “on one condition. You must promise not to lose them, nor to give them away.”

“Catch me!” cried the dirty boy, as he took the shoes. And his voice seemed quite changed, and he put one of his dirty fingers by the side of his nose.

“I could easily catch you if I wished,” said Tim. (For slang was not allowed in Dr. Dixon Airey’s establishment, and he did not understand the remark.)

“Well, you _are_ green!” said the dirty boy, putting on the shoes.

“It’s no business of yours what color I am,” said Tim, angrily. “You’re black, and that’s your own fault for not washing yourself. And if you’re saucy or ungrateful, I’ll kick you—at least, I’ll try,” he added, for he remembered that he no longer wore the fairy shoes, and could not be sure of kicking or catching anybody now.

“Walker!” cried the dirty boy. But he did not walk, he ran, down the street as fast as he could go, and Timothy was parted from his shoes.

He gave a sigh, just one sigh, and then he put on the new boots, and went to meet the Usher.

The Usher was at the door of a pastrycook’s shop, and he took Tim in, and they had veal-pies and ginger-wine; and the Usher paid the bill. And all this time he beamed affably through his green spectacles, and never looked at Timothy’s feet.

Then they went out into the street, where there was an interesting smell of smoke, and humanity, and meat, and groceries, and drapery, and drugs, quite different to the moor air, and the rattling and bustling were most stimulating. And Tim and the Usher looked in at all the shop-windows gratis, and choose the things they would have bought if they had had the money. At last the Usher went into a shop and bought for Tim a kite which he had admired; and Tim would have given everything he possessed to have been able to buy some small keep-sake for the Usher, but he could not, for he had spent all his pocket-money on the new boots.