Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 404, June, 1849

"Nonsense, my dear fellow," said the Doctor, taken a little aback, "he can't possibly be a favourite of such a firebrand – it must be some one else; and, besides, he never told me he was a friend of your son."

"You can ask him," replied your father, "for I'm quite sure I've often heard Charles talk of his friend Mount Huxtable."

A dead silence fell upon us all. Strange, we thought, that he should never have alluded to his acquaintance with you. Can he be ashamed of the way you have been going on? Is he afraid of being suspected of the same ludicrous feastings and fastings that have given you such a reputation here?

"Pray, my dear Mount Huxtable," said Dr Smiler, when the new curate, accompanied by the young ladies – like the proud-walking, long-necked leader of a tribe of beautiful snow-white geese – entered the room, "have you ever met our excellent friend, Charles Fustian?"

"Fustian – Fustian?" replied the Curate, trying to recollect. "There are so many of that name in the Church, I surely ought to have met with one of them."

The Doctor nodded his head, quite satisfied, to your father.

"You see, you see," he said, with a chuckle.

"I see nothing of the sort," said your progenitor; "for though Fustian is common enough in the Church, I'm sure Mount Huxtable isn't."

"That's true," said the Doctor. "Pray, how do you account for Charles Fustian happening to know YOU?"

"Ah, my dear sir," answered Mount Huxtable, with a smile to the ladies, "there is an old byword, which says more people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows."

A great laugh rewarded this sally, and the Doctor's triumph over his neighbours was complete.

"I told you what it would come to," he said; "no true orthodox churchman can have any acquaintance with such a semi-papist as poor Charles."

The conversation now went on in the usual channel – that is to say, we talked a little politics, which was very uninteresting, for we all agreed; and the young ones attacked the Curate on music and painting, and church architecture, on all which subjects he managed to give them great satisfaction, for he was an excellent musician, a tolerable artist, and might have passed anywhere for a professional builder. I suppose they were as much astonished as pleased to find that a man might be an opponent of the Tracts, and yet be as deep in church matters as themselves. Encouraged by this, they must have pushed their advances rather far for a first meeting; for, after an animated conversation in the bow-window, Araminta and two or three other young ladies came to the Doctor's chair.

"Only think, dear Doctor Smiler," she said, "how unkind Mr Mount Huxtable is. Next Thursday, our practising day in the church, is the Feast of holy St Ingulpus of Doncaster, and he won't give us leave to ornament the altar with flowers."

"And who in the world is St Ingulpus of Doncaster?" said the Doctor.

"A holy man, I don't in the least deny," said Mount Huxtable, kindly taking the answer on himself. "His acts and writings attest his virtues and power; but I merely mentioned to the young ladies, as the easiest way of settling the affair, that St Ingulpus, though most justly canonised by the holy father in the thirteenth century, was not elevated to the degree of worship or veneration by the succeeding councils."

"And you answered them very well, sir," said the Doctor. "And as to St Ingulpus of Doncaster, I never heard of him, and believe him to have been an impostor, like the holy father, as you ironically call him, who pretended to canonise him."

"Oh, papa!" said Christina, addressing her father, but looking all the time at the Curate, "Mr Mount Huxtable himself confesses he was a holy man."

"What? – do you join in such follies? Go to bed, or learn to behave less like a child. Mr Mount Huxtable accommodates his language to the weakness of his auditors; but in reality he has as great a contempt for this Ingulpus, or any other popish swindler, as I have."

The Doctor was now so secure of support from his curate, that he felt bold enough to get into a passion. If he had fired a pistol at his guests, he could scarcely have created a greater sensation. The effect on Christina was such that she clung for support to Mount Huxtable, and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Mr Mount Huxtable," continued the Rector, "has forbidden you to disfigure my church with flowers. Mr Mount Huxtable has the entire charge of this parish, and from his decision there is no appeal."

This knock-down blow he had kept for the last; and it had all the effect he expected. They were silent for a long time. "That has settled them, I think," he whispered to me; "they know me to be such a good-natured old fool, and so fond of them all, that in time they might have turned me round their thumbs; but Mount Huxtable is a different man. At the same time, I must'nt have the darlings too harshly used. I daresay I was a little too bitter in the way I spoke: I can't bear to see any of them unhappy, – something must be done to amuse them."

If the Doctor had done them all some serious injury, he could not have been more anxious to atone for it. He spoke to each of them, patted them on the head, told them they were good girls, and that he loved them all like his own children; and even went so far as to say that, if the matter was entirely in his hands, he didn't know but that he might have allowed them to make what wreaths and posies they liked on Thursday. "And as to your friend Ingulpus," he concluded, "I hope and trust he was a good man according to his lights, and probably had no intention to deceive. So, my dear Mount Huxtable, as your uncompromising Protestantism is the cause of disappointment to my young flock, I must punish you by insisting on your immediately singing them a song."

"The young ladies, sir, shall find I am not so uncompromising a Protestant as they fear, for you see I don't even protest against the justice of your sentence;" and with this he took his seat at the piano. "The song I shall attempt is not a very new one," he said, "for it was written in the year a thousand and forty by a monk of Cluny. The Benedictines, you will remember, have at all times been devoted to music." So saying, he threw his hand over the keys, and after a prelude, sang in a fine manly voice —

 
"Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt; vigilemus! —
Ecce! minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus, —
 
 
Imminet! imminet! ut mala terminet, æqua coronet,
Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, æthera donet,
 
 
Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustæ;
Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque justè."
 

Astonishment and delight kept the company silent for a while after he had finished, and then the repressed feelings of the audience burst out with tenfold force. "Oh, Mr Mount Huxtable!" said they all, "you must attend our Thursday practising in the church. It will be so delightful now, for all we required was a fine man's voice. How beautiful the words are, and how well adapted for singing! And the music, how splendid! – pray whose is the music?"

"I am afraid I must confess myself the culprit in that respect," replied the Curate, very modestly. "I have been an enthusiast in music all my life, and have a peculiar delight in composing melodies to the old Catholic hymns."

After this no more was said of flowers on St Ingulpus's day; and it was very evident that our new ally was carrying the war into the enemy's country, and, in fact, was turning their artillery against themselves.

"If you are pleased with this simple song, I am sure that you will all be enchanted next week with two friends who have promised to visit me – both exquisite musicians, and very clever men."

"Clergymen?" inquired two or three of the ladies.

"Of course. I have very few lay acquaintances. You perhaps have heard their names, – the Reverend Launton Swallowlies, and the Reverend Iscariot Rowdy, both of Oxford."

"No we don't know their names, but shall be delighted to see any friends of yours." And so the party broke up with universal satisfaction. There was a brilliant moon, and Mount Huxtable sent away his phaeton and two beautiful gray ponies, and walked to Hellebore gate with the Blazers. Christina Smiler would rather have had him drive home, and looked a little sad as they went off: but we heard happy voices all the way down the avenue; snatches of psalm-music, even, rose up from the shrubs that line the walk; and it appears that the whole group had stopt short on the little knoll that rises just within the parsonage gate, and sung the Sicilian Mariner's Hymn.

So I think, my dear Charles, you may give up any farther attempts on our good old Church principles; the Doctor is determined not to turn round to the communion-table even at the creed, and I will beat you £20 that the congregation will all come back again, and we shall once more be a happy and united parish.

LETTER THIRD

We look on you now, my dear Charles, as a fallen star; and, between ourselves, I don't think you are missed by a single astronomer in Yawnham, from the sky where you were once enthroned. No, sir: our curate's neckcloth is stiffer than yours, his collar plainer, his tails longer, his knowledge of saints and legends infinitely deeper – and, besides, he sings like an angel, and has a phaeton and pair. And he is so gentlemanly, too. He was at Eton, and is intimate with many lords, and has a power of sneering at low churchmen and dissenters that would be myrrh and incense to the Pope. Now you will observe, my unfortunate young friend, that when gentlemanly manners, good looks and accomplishments – not to mention an intimacy with the Red Book – and fourteen hundred a-year are in one scale, and Charles Fustian and a ton weight of Tractarians are in the other, the young persons who, in our parish, hold the beam will very soon send you and your make-weights half-way through the roof. Therefore, if you wish to retrieve your influence, either with Araminta or the other fair innovators, now or never is your time; come down and visit us. We shall all be delighted to see your elongated visage, and are not without hopes – for you are a good-natured excellent-dispositioned fellow after all – that you will see the error of your ways, and believe that humility and charity are Christian graces as well as faith and coloured windows. It so happens that there is scarcely a house in the place without a visitor. Tom Blazer has come down to Hellebore Park, and has brought Jones and Smith, two of his brother officers of the Rifles, with him; – the two Oxford men are with Mount Huxtable, who has taken Laburnum Place, and our doings are likely to be uncommonly gay. Swallowlies and Rowdy are great friends, though they seem to be the very antipodes of each other. Rowdy won't believe anything, and has doubts about the battle of Waterloo; and Swallowlies believes everything, and thinks the American States will soon pay off my bonds. Rowdy says there is no evidence, satisfactory to him, that there is such a state as Arkansas in the world, as it is not authoritatively stated by church or council; and tries to persuade me that I have lent six thousand pounds of real money to an imaginary republic. In the mean time, the loss of three hundred a-year is by no means an imaginary evil, and I feel a little sore at both these Oxford humourists for laughing at my misfortunes. However, Swallowlies errs on the right side, and is decidedly the favourite with us all.

You may guess, my dear Charles, how the heart of Major M'Turk jumped for joy when Mount Huxtable proposed a pic-nic at the Holywell tree at the other extremity of the parish; and all the young ladies, without a single exception, determined to be of the party. Fasting, my good friend, has come to an end: there were pies enough made to feed an army; baskets by the dozen were packed up, containing plates, and knives and forks; crates filled with cold fowls and hams, and others loaded with fruit and wine. The Rector had out his old coach, which Chipper managed to decapitate for the occasion, and it did duty (like St Denis) with its head off, as an open barouche. He took some of the Puginstones, and two of the Pulsers; and, to make room for Mrs M'Turk, he, or rather Mrs Smiler, asked the Curate to take Christina beside him on the driving-seat of his phaeton. I got out my old four-wheel, which was certainly not so fashionable-looking as Mount Huxtable's drag, but so commodious that it appears made of India-rubber, and stretches to any extent. Tom Blazer is an ostentatious fool and sports a tandem – that is to say, he puts his own horse and Jones' (one before the other) in his father's high gig, and insists on driving Tinderella Swainlove all about the country. On this occasion she also graced his side; and Jones himself, who is as active as one of the Voltigeurs at Astley's, fixed a board on the hind part of the gig and sat with his back to the horse, smoking cigars and calling it a dog-cart. At last we all got there; and, when the company was assembled, it certainly was a goodly sight to see. The little spring that gives its name to the fine old elm – now, alas! a stump that might pass for Arthur's Table Round – comes welling out from a glorious old rock, which rises suddenly, you remember, from the richest pasture field in yeoman Ruffhead's farm. I never saw the scenery to such advantage: the woods of Kindstone Hill closed in the landscape on the west; and before us, to the south, was spread out the long sunny level of Richland meads, at the farther extremity of which rose the time-honoured ivy-covered ruins of Leeches Abbey. While the servants, who had gone over in a couple of carts, were busy in arranging the repast, we fell off into parties, and, by mere accident, I joined the Blazer girls and Captain Smith, who gathered round the Holywell, and told what little legends they knew of it to Swallowlies and Rowdy.

"They thought it was good for epileptic fits," said Araminta, "in the Roman Catholic time. It was blessed by St Toper of Geneva, who was overcome by thirst one morning after spending the night with the monks of Leeches."

"Toper of Geneva?" inquired Captain Smith, – "it's rather a jolly name for a saint; no wonder the old boy felt his coppers hot after a night with the monks."

But the remark was so coldly received that the Captain, who enjoys a great reputation in the Rifles for wit and pleasantry, was for a while struck dumb.

"Who shall tell what may be the efficacy of a good man's blessing," said Mr Swallowlies, dipping his finger reverently in the cow's drinking trough, and touching his forehead. "Do you know, Miss Blazer, if it still retains its virtue?"

"I believe epileptic patients are still brought to the spring," replied Araminta, "and I have heard that the old woman in that little hut on the hill-side has seen several cures."

"I will make her acquaintance this moment," exclaimed Swallowlies. "I think it a privilege to look on a matron who has witnessed so remarkable a manifestation. Will you go with me, Rowdy?"

"No, I have no great faith in the fountain."

"Why not?"

"Because it is a sufficient effort for the human mind to have faith in one or two points of far greater importance."

"But you needn't make any effort at all. Take it on the assurance of the Church," said Swallowlies persuasively. "We have, indeed, cut ourselves off from a declaration of our belief in the power of saints like the holy Toper; but we can surely entertain the belief, though we are debarred from making public profession of it. And, in fact, any one who believes in miracles at all must equally believe that this spring will cure epileptic fits."

"Exactly as I say," responded Rowdy; "all miracles are equally credible."

"Then come to the old woman," said Swallowlies, taking his arm.

"No," said Mr Rowdy, "I have lately had great doubts as to my own identity, and I am going to try some experiments to see whether I am now the same person I was when I signed the articles, and did duty in my parish."

Mr Swallowlies, however, and the rest of us, with the exception of Captain Smith, walked to old Janet Wheedler's cottage, while Rowdy entered on his course of experimental philosophy. We found her nicely dressed, as if in expectation of our coming; and as the spring, with its capabilities for a pic-nic and its ancient associations, was a source of considerable revenue to her, she evidently was greatly pleased with the number of guests whom she saw approaching her door.

"Pax vobiscum!" said Mr Swallowlies, as we entered the cottage. "You reside here in highly favoured ground."

"Yes, indeed, sir," said Janet, "the gentlefolks be very fond of it, and very often come here from all parts about."

"Only the gentlefolks?" inquired her visitor. "I thought I heard that others came to avail themselves of the holy spring."

"Some folks don't believe in it now, sir – more's the pity. It was of great value in the old time."

"Why should it lose its virtue, Mrs Wheedler? If we had still the faith, it would have still the power."

Janet looked towards Mr Swallowlies, to judge whether he was in jest or earnest; but, on catching the face of wonderment with which he gazed at the well, and the unmistakable sincerity with which he spoke, the old woman, who had been a fortune-teller in her youth, involuntarily winked her blear eye, and curled up the corners of her mouth.

"It ain't quite falled away yet, sir. This here cat as ever you sees – here, Tabby dear, get up and show yourself to the gentles – this here cat, sir, a week ago, was took so ill of the palsy that it shook all over like a leaf. I thought it was agoing to die; but at last, thinks I, why shouldn't St Toper cure she, as he cures so many as have fits? And so, sir, I goes and fetches a little water, and flings it on Tabby's face, and the moment she felt the water she stops the shaking, and walks about as well as ever."

"Had she had any breakfast that morning?"

"No, sir, fasting from all but air; I gave her nothing from the night before, when she supped on a mouse."

Mr Swallowlies stooped down and laid his hand on the cat, which was purring and rubbing its fur against his leg.

"A strange instance this," he said, "of the efficacy of the ancient faith."

"Do you believe it, sir?" I inquired.

"Why not, sir? I don't attribute this, of course, to the direct operation of St Toper; but it certainly was endowed with this virtue to be evidence of his holy life. A wonderful animal this, Mrs Wheedler, – you would not probably wish to part with it?"

"I have two or three other cats, sir; but I'm very poor, and a little money is more useful to me than old Tabby."

"I'll speak to you in a little on the subject. Meanwhile, have you any other instances of cure?"

"Not to speak of, sir," replied Janet, delighted with the deference she was treated with. "That there little calf as you sees among the cabbage was born with five legs, and without ever a tail."

"Five legs! bless me!" exclaimed Mr Swallowlies – "how very strange! – it has only four now."

"Ah, sir! that's all owing to the well. I takes it to the spring, and sprinkles the fifth leg three times, and immediately it gives a jerk, and up goes the leg into its body, like the winding up of a jack-chain; and so I goes to work again, and flings a bucketful on its back, and, in a minute or two, out comes a tail, – and there it is, and not a single mark left of where the additional leg had disappeared."

"This is most interesting!" exclaimed Mr Swallowlies. "Have you got the bucket you used in aspersing the calf?"

"There it be, sir," said Janet, pointing to a tub of some size, that was placed upright against the wall.

"A blessed instrument, indeed," said the gentleman, bowing most respectfully, as he sounded with his knuckles on the rim. "I must have some minutes' conversation with you, Mrs Wheedler, for I make a point of never taking any stories, which at first sight appear improbable, without sedulous inquiry and anxious proof."

"I hear the dinner-bell," I said at this moment, for I heard Captain Smith performing the "Roast beef of Old England" on a key-bugle, which was the concerted signal for our assembling where the provender had been spread; and I used a little more vigour than usual in drawing the young ladies away.

"What a splendid specimen of Anglo-Catholic faith is Mr Swallowlies!" exclaimed Araminta in a tone of rapture; "and how free from bigotry in his reverence for a Romish saint like the holy Toper!"

"Hold your silly tongue, this moment!" I exclaimed, getting into a passion – "a fellow that believes in paralytic cats and five-footed calves being cured by such trumpery, should leave our church."

"You are so bitter, Mr Buddle, against the Holy Catholic Church, that I wonder you call yourself a Christian at all."

"Where is the Holy Catholic Church, you little simpleton?" I said, softening a little, for Araminta is a nice little girl.

"At Rome, Charles Fustian told me; and we are but a distant branch of it, bearing very little fruit, and owing that little only to the sap furnished to us by the main old trunk. And Mr Mount Huxtable says the same, – only that our branch bears no fruit, as the continuity was cut off at the deplorable Reformation."

"Charles Fustian! Mr Mount Huxtable!" I cried: "they're laughing at you, my little dear: they are both ministers of our church, and have made numberless protestations against the wickedness and errors of Rome. They are laughing at you, – at least I know Mount Huxtable is, for, to tell you a secret, my dear Araminta, he is placed here for no other purpose but to defend our Protestant Establishment against the Tractarian tendencies of the artists and young ladies of the day."

"Charles Fustian, sir, I beg to tell you, knows too well to presume to laugh at me," said Araminta, tossing her head.

"He ought, my dear," I replied, "for he is a remarkably foolish young man, and hasn't half the sense in his whole head which you have in your little finger."

By this time we had reached the spring; and after placing the girls in the best seats still to be found, I called Dr Smiler aside.

"My dear old friend," I said, "have you made proper inquiry about Mount Huxtable's church principles, before you installed him in full power in the parish?"

"No Tractarian need apply, was in the advertisement," replied the Doctor. "He is a stout opponent of the dissenters; and, besides, my dear Buddle, as you are the oldest friend I have in the parish, I may tell you that on the way here he had a long conversation with Christina, who sat beside him in his phaeton, and among other things he asked her if she thought she could be content with the humble condition of a curate's wife? She said yes, of course, – for she has liked him ever since they met; and he told her he would wait on me to-morrow. I now consider him my son-in-law. He has great expectations, and has already fourteen hundred a-year."

"I don't like what I hear of his churchmanship," I said. "And as to Swallowlies, I think he is a bigoted fool, and a Papist."

"I don't the least see, Mr Buddle, why a man should be either bigoted or a fool who believes as two-thirds of the Christians throughout the world believe."

So saying, the Doctor turned off in a very dignified manner, and presided over the pigeon-pie.

I confess to you, my dear Charles, this acted like a thunderbolt on me. Rejoiced as I was at Christina's good fortune, in attracting the affection of so amiable and wealthy an admirer as Mount Huxtable, I did not feel altogether comfortable at the effect which this discovery had on the logical powers of my friend the Rector of Yawnham. Because a man admires my daughter, and makes her an offer of marriage, am I to kiss the Pope's toe? I made a determination to inquire into matters more deeply than I had hitherto done, and, with a view to pick up all the information I could, I watched the conversation in silence.

Betsy Blazer sat next Captain Smith of the Rifles, and, in one of the pauses which occasionally occur in the noisiest assemblages, her voice was distinctly heard.

"Do you ever chant when you are all together in barracks, Captain Smith? – it must be delightful."

"Well, I can't deny that there is occasionally chanting after mess," replied the soldier, a little amazed.

"Who is the leader?"

"Why, Jones and I both pretend to some renown."

"Are they Gregorian?"

"I should say Stentorian was a better description, for, between ourselves, Jones, in the Nottingham Ale, might be mistaken for an angry bull."

What the denouement of the conversation was I don't know, for Rowdy's voice rose above the din —

"Faith expires" – he said – "hope grows dim – but ceremony, the last refuge of religion, remains. We lose the trustingness that makes us lay the promises of holy writ to our hearts, – the childlike simplicity that lifts us into a world where truth erects her palace on gorgeous clouds, which to us take the semblance and solidity of mountains, – we lose the thrill, the dread, the love, – but we can retain the surplice, the albe, and the stole. The cloud that seemed a mountain has disappeared; the confidence that sustained us has gone, – but we can erect churches according to the strictest rules of architecture, cover the table with cloth of gold, – have daily service, have some fixed, irrevocable, eternal rule, and feel ourselves the slaves of hours and postures; – a slavery befitting those who are left to grope in the darkness of their own souls for a belief, and find nothing to support, to bless, or cheer them."

"Do you advocate the externals of devotion, Mr Rowdy, after the reality of religion has left the heart?" I inquired.

"Certainly, sir," he said. "If you waited for the internal religion you talk of, you would never enter a church. And pray, sir, what is internal, and what is external? Your heart is a piece of flesh, your font is a piece of stone; why shouldn't holiness reside in the one as well as in the other?"

"It strikes me, Mr Rowdy, to be rather hypocritical to go through the forms of religion without the spirit," I urged again.

"And what is life but hypocrisy? – your very clothes make you a hypocrite: without them you would resemble a forked radish, but you disfigure yourself in surtout and pantaloons. Go through the ceremonies, sir – the feeling in time will come; dig your trenches deep, and the rain will pour into them and burn the sacrifice of your altar with fire; kneel when you have no devotion, bend yourself to decrees and ordinances when you have no humility and no faith; and, entering on that course with the scoff of Voltaire, you will emerge from it with the sanctity of Vincent de Paul."

"On the contrary, sir, I maintain," said I, "that, if you persist in these miserable bonds of an outward obedience, in the expectation that they will promote your advance in goodness, you bring on yourself the condemnation of the Pharisee; you may enter them with the faith of your friend Mr Swallowlies, but you will leave them ere long with the sentiments of the infidel and apostate Strauss."

"I call no man an apostate," cried Mr Rowdy, "who traces the operations of his own mind to their legitimate results; I call no man an infidel who believes that he was born, and that he shall die."

"How good! how liberal! how humane!" exclaimed a chorus of sweet voices.

"And what do YOU say?" I enquired, addressing our new curate.

"For myself," said Mr Mount Huxtable, "I think it sinful in any one to decide on such a subject, unless in the exact words of the church."

"Very good," said the Doctor; "judiciously answered."

"Don't you allow private judgment, sir?" said I.

"No more, sir," he replied, "than I should allow private execution. It is for the church to pass sentence: if any presumptuous individual interferes with her authority, he is as much out of his sphere as if he were to displace Baron Alderson on the bench, go through the mockery of a trial, and condemn an enemy of his own to be hanged."

"Very good, indeed," said the Doctor; "judiciously answered."

"I have often heard your friend, Charles Fustian, say the same," said Araminta.

"Is he a friend of yours, Mount Huxtable?" inquired Dr Smiler, in a very bland tone.

"A most intimate friend, my dear sir," replied Mount Huxtable.

"Dear me! – I thought you told me you didn't know him."

"No, my dear sir, I didn't tell you so: I only gave you to understand that we weren't acquainted."

"That used to be pretty much the same thing," I said, a little chafed with the putting down I had already experienced, "and I suspect you are a great deal more intimate than you were inclined to let us know."

"You have exactly hit upon the reason," he replied. "I was not inclined to let you know; and I have yet to learn that a priest is imperatively required to confess to a layman, however inquisitive or ill-mannered he may be."

"Come, my dear Buddle," said the Doctor, "I think you will see that you ought to apologise."

"For what?" I exclaimed.

"For speaking so irreverently to the pastor of the parish," replied Dr Smiler. "You should consider, sir, that Mr Mount Huxtable is your spiritual guide."

"Certainly," said Araminta; and Christina Smiler grew first red and then pale, and looked at me as if I were a heathen.

I sipped a glass in silence; and the altercation had the unpleasant effect of producing an awkward pause.

When the silence had endured for upwards of a minute, it was suddenly broken by Major M'Turk ejaculating, in his most military manner, "Sharpshooters, to the front!" and mechanically Jones and Smith sprang up, and, advancing a few paces, anxiously looked upward in the direction pointed out by the commander's hand. The sight they saw might have shaken less firm nerves than theirs; for, toiling slowly down the hill, from Janet Wheedler's cottage, we perceived a nondescript figure, yet evidently human, more puzzling than the sea-serpent. Some large round substance enveloped its head, and entirely buried the hat and face, and covered the whole of the neck down to the middle buttons of the coat. Tucked under one arm we beheld a cat, secured by a ribbon tied round its neck; and, with a large kitchen poker in the other hand, the advancing stranger drove before him a great awkward calf. When he got a little nearer, we recognised our friend Mr Swallowlies.