and followed by a hideous little object in the shape of Vidlerround, fierce, blackened with soot, drenched with water, and foaming at the mouth. I was not afraid of him, but of the dirt, as he chased me into the dining-room, where I kept him at bay with the legs of a chair.

"You atrocious scoundrel!" he panted, from the midst of his strangely blackened face, as he tore with sooty hand at his wet black shirt-front and white kerseymere waistcoat. "You villain, this is one of your cursed practical jokes; but I'll have an action-I'll have an action!"

'Perhaps, sir, as plaintiff, you will explain upon what grounds," I said blandly.

"Grounds, sir! grounds! you smooth-tongued, insulting blackguard. Why, sir, five minutes ago I was standing, as is my wont, reading my paper and warming my back, when an avalanche, a cataract—a dirty, abominable fall of Niagara, sir, came rushing down my chimney, sir, deluging me, my Turkey carpet and my hearth-rug, and putting out my fire. As soon as I could recover from my astonishment, sir, I thrust my head up the chimney, sir, and roared out to you to cease, when, sir, a second avalanche came down, and-and-hang it all, sir, just look at me!"

I did look, and he certainly was a guy.

"Now, sir, what does this mean?"

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Mean, sir," I replied, "well, I'm afraid I poured the water down the wrong chimney."

A Discussion at the "Rainbow."

(Adapted.)

The conversation, which was now at a high pitch of animation, had, as usual, been slow and intermittent when the company first assembled. The pipes began to be puffed in a silence which had an air of severity; the more important customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at each other as if a bet were depending on the first man who winked; while the beer drinkers, chiefly men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks, kept their eyelids down and rubbed their hands across their mouths, as if their draughts of beer were a

X

funereal duty attended with embarrassing sadness.

At last, Mr. Snell, the landlord, a man of a neutral disposition, accustomed to stand aloof from human differences as those of beings who were all alike in need of liquor, broke silence, by saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the butcher

"Some folks 'ud say that was a fine beast you druv in yesterday, Bob?"

The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man, was not disposed to answer rashly. He gave a few puffs before he spat and replied, "And they wouldn't be fur wrong, John.”

After this feeble delusive thaw, the silence set in as severely as before.

"Was it a red Durham?" said the farrier, taking up the thread of discourse after the lapse of a few minutes.

The farrier looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at the butcher, as the person who must take the responsibility of answering.

"Red it was," said the butcher, in his good-humoured husky treble-" and a Durham it was."

"Then you needn't tell me who you bought it of," said the farrier, looking round with some triumph; "I know who it is has got the red Durhams o' this country-side. And she'd a white star on her brow, I'll bet a penny?" The farrier leaned forward with his hands on his knees as he put this question, and his eyes twinkled knowingly.

"Well; yes she might," said the butcher, slowly, considering that he was giving a decided affirmative. "I don't say contrairy." "I knew that very well," said the farrier, throwing himself backward again, and speaking defiantly; "if I don't know Mr. Lammeter's cows, I should like to know who does-that's all. And as for the cow you've bought, bargain or no bargain, I've been at the drenching of her-contradick me who will."

The farrier looked fierce, and the mild butcher's conversational spirit was roused a little.

peace

"I'm not for contradicking no man," he said; "I'm for and quietness. Some are for cutting long ribs-I'm for cutting 'em short myself; but I don't quarrel with 'em. All I say is, it's a lovely carkiss-and anybody as was reasonable, it 'ud bring tears into their eyes to look at it."

"Well, it's the cow as I drenched, whatever it is," pursued

1

the farrier, angrily; "and it was Mr. Lammeter's cow, else you told a lie when you said it was a red Durham."

"I tell no lies," said the butcher, with the same mild huskiness as before, "and I contradick none-not if a man was to swear himself black: he's no meat o' mine, nor none o' my bargains. All I say is, it's a lovely carkiss. And what I say I'll stick to; but I'll quarrel wi' no man."

"No," said the farrier, with bitter sarcasm, looking at the company generally; and p'rhaps you aren't pig-headed; and p'rhaps you didn't say the cow was a red Durham; and p'rhaps you didn't say she'd got a star on her brow-stick to that, now you're at it."

Come, come," said the landlord; "let the cow alone. The truth lies atween you: you're both right and both wrong, as I allays say. And as for the cow's being Mr. Lammeter's, I say nothing to that; but this I say, as the Rainbow's the Rainbow. And for the matter o' that, if the talk is to be o' the Lammeter's, you know the most upo' that head, eh, Mr. Macey; you remember when first Mr. Lammeter's father come into these parts, and took the Warrens?”

Mr. Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter of which functions rheumatism had of late obliged him to share with a smallfeatured young man who sat opposite him, held his white head on one side, and twirled his thumbs with an air of complacency, slightly seasoned with criticism. He smiled pityingly, in answer to the landlord's appeal, and said

Ay, ay; I know, I know; but I let other folks talk. I've laid by now, and gev up to the young uns. Ask them as have been to school at Tarley: they've learnt pernouncing; that's come up since my day."

"If you're pointing at me, Mr. Macey," said the deputyclerk, with an air of anxious propriety, "I'm nowise a man to

speak out of my place. As the psalm says

'I know what's right, nor only so,

But also practise what I know.'

"Well, then, I wish you'd keep hold o' the tune, when it's set for you; if you're for practising, I wish you'd practise that," said a large jocose-looking man, an excellent wheelwright in his week-day capacity, but on Sundays leader of the choir. He winked, as he spoke, at two of the company, who were

known officially as the "bassoon" and the "key-bugle,” in the confidence that he was expressing the sense of the musical profession in Raveloe.

Mr. Tookey, the deputy-clerk, who shared the unpopularity common to deputies, turned very red, but replied, with careful moderation" Mr. Winthrop, if you'll bring me any proof as I'm in the wrong, I'm not the man to say I won't alter. But there's people set up their own ears for a standard, and expect the whole choir to follow 'em. There may be two opinions, I hope."

Ay, ay," said Mr. Macey, who felt very well satisfied with this attack on youthful presumption; "you're right there, Tookey there's allays two 'pinions; there's the 'pinion a man has of himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd be two 'pinions about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear itself."

"Well, Mr. Macey," said poor Tookey, serious amidst the general laughter, "I undertook to partially fill up the office of parish-clerk by Mr. Crackenthorp's desire, whenever your infirmities should make you unfitting; and it's one of the rights thereof to sing in the choir-else why have you done the same yourself?"

"Ah! but the old gentleman and you are two folks," said Ben Winthrop. "The old gentleman's got a gift. Why, the Squire used to invite him to take a glass, only to hear him sing the Red Rovier;' didn't he, Mr. Macey? It's a nat'ral gift. There's my little lad Aaron, he's got a gift he can sing a tune off straight, like a throstle. But as for you Master Tookey, you'd better stick to your 'Amens :' your voice is well enough when you keep it up in your nose. It's your inside as isn't right made for music: it's no better nor a hollow stalk."

This kind of unflinching frankness was the most piquant form of joke to the company at the Rainbow, and Ben Winthrop's insult was felt by everybody to have capped Mr. Macey's epigram.

"I see what it is plain enough," said Mr. Tookey, unable to keep cool any longer. "There's a conspiracy to turn me out o' the choir, as I shouldn't share the Christmas money—that's where it is. But I shall speak to Mr. Crackenthorp; I'll not be put upon by no man.'

"Nay, nay, Tookey," said Ben Winthrop.

"We'll pay you

your share to keep out of it-that's what we'll do. There's things folks 'ud pay to be rid on, besides varmin.”

"Come, come," said the landlord, who felt that paying people for their absence was a principle dangerous to society; "a joke's a joke. We're all good friends here, I hope. We must give and take. You're both right and you're both wrong, as I say. I agree wi' Mr. Macey here, as there's two opinions; and if mine was asked, I should say they're both right. Tookey's right and Winthrop's right, and they've only got to split the difference and make themselves even."

The farrier was puffing his pipe rather fiercely, in some contempt at this trivial discussion. He had no ear for music himself, and never went to church, as being of the medical profession, and likely to be in requisition for delicate cows. But the butcher, having music in his soul, had listened with a divided desire for Tookey's defeat, and for the preservation of the peace.

"To be sure," he said, following up the landlord's conciliatory view, "we're fond of our old clerk; it's nat'ral, and him used to be such a singer, and got a brother as is known for the first fiddler in this country-side. Eh, it's a pity but what Solomon lived in our village, and could give us a tune when we liked ; eh, Mr. Macey? I'd keep him in liver and lights for nothingthat I would."

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66

'Ay, ay," said Mr. Macey, in the height of complacency; our family's been known for musicianers as far back as anybody can tell. But them things are dying out, as I tell Solomon every time he comes round; there's no voices like what there used to be, and there's nobody remembers what we remember, if it isn't the old crows."

"Ay, you remember when first Mr. Lammeter's father come into these parts, don't you, Mr. Macey?" said the landlord.

"I should think I did," said the old man, who had now gone through that complimentary process necessary to bring him up to the point of narration ; "and a fine old gentleman he was— as fine, and finer nor the Mr. Lammeter as now is. from a bit north'ard, so far as I could ever make out. there's nobody rightly knows about those parts: only it couldn't be far north'ard, nor much different from this country, for he

He came

But