lidays-her extravagance has shortened my days by five years and upwards. Now, Elias, lad, I have some words to say to which ye must listen. When ye hear that Duke this, and Earl that, and Lord the other thing, recommend a new manger and a new cheese-press, and an improved creaming-cup, and new grasses, and new broods of cowseven laugh, and bide by thy wise father's plans. Mind them not-these are maggots which breed and where's the harm-in great men's heads but great men's heads, Elias, are as empty as a milk-pail before milking-time. It was biding by one wise plan of thrift, that raised me from a poor herdsman to be proprietor of Coldengame, with some pretty slips of pasture about Cranesford and Thrandestone. I wish that cursed cough would keep away, that I might engrave the description of the kind of cow which filled my pails and pockets upon your memory.'

The old man coughed long, and then recommenced his train of advice. "My favourite cow had no horns-horns will gore others of the herd, and spill the pails of milk. She had a clean, clear throat--a small dewlap a heavy belly — a ridged back-a large carcase and thin legs, with a hollow chine and a snake head. Her udder was big and her milkveins large; her eye was greedy, and her colour was the hue of her own cream-what I call a golden cream. Thy mother favoured the brindled sort-but my dying word will be a cream, a golden cream. She will yield eight gallons a-day, and her milk will cast a coat of cream over which a mouse might walk dry-footed. That's the cow, Elias, for the world-will ye learn the description by heart?" The heir nodded assent, and the old man continued. "Now I think I may give a thought or two to the other world-to the state of my soul, as Parson Horegrove says-not that I have so much need as many others, for I have ever kept matters close by the head there. I went regularly to church-I gave Lady Religion her just dues and her dues are far from light." "Ah! father," said Elias," the church is a greater cormorant than the state: she claims and takes all the gains of Coldengame every tenth year-I think her

and, looking her full in the face, seemed willing to impose silence on her by his looks. She was not to be so daunted-there she stood like the pride of old English virtue and truth personified, while the demon of gain and rapacity seemed represented by the other. "Young man," Isaid the old woman, "I read your heart-it is leaping with joy at the hope of a speedy possession-and ye curse death as dilatory, and think the grave and the pit are slow in claiming their morsel. There ye stand, anxious to succeed to the gains of that wretched old man whom God smote with a year's blindness, yet he repented not-with a year's madness, yet he cried not for mercy and when he restored him to his faculties, did he bless the hand of heaven, and rue the wrongs he had done to the widow and the orphan? From that infirm portion of clay I hope not for restitution-let him go unworthily and unblessed to his grave-where the loathing worms will spare his poisonous carcase. But from you, young man -griping and greedy as you are, the only child of one whom God has sent among us for a curse-I expect-nay, I demand justice-and see ye delay it not. Now mark my words. The tongue that never spoke on the side of mercy and truth before, will command you to do justice to me and mine-obey, and thy days shall be long in the land-refuse, and within the light of one short moon ye shall be summoned before an inexorable judge, and an end shall be of thee and thine."

"Woman, woman!" said Elias, "dost thou think, with thy clasped book at thy belt, and ungracious words on thy tongue, to dismay me? Ye have been long known for one who could do no good for yourself: and whenever you have seen a neighbour prosper, lo! ye came and clasped your hands and shouted, He has robbed the widow, and plundered the fatherless; and there he rides gallantly with the Lincoln green coat and silver buttons, who deserves to be made a tassel to a gibbet.' Had honest men their will, ye would pass the herring-brook, dame, for an illwisher-and a prayer of evil prayers.' "The herring-brook which ye will pass," said the old woman," will be that brook which runs down the

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thing is about to happen." "Elias," said the old man, gasping for breath -"listen to me-make the five fields seven, and add to them one hundred pieces of gold-and then I think men will bless me when I'm in the grave -and I may take heaven in my own hand. Send for Ruth Rushbrook, I say." "Father," answered Elias, "where have ye hid the rights of Framlingham lea, the title deeds of Grublington? and I have not seen for a twelvemonth, and more, the silver token by which ye hold of the crown Lily-acres and the six fields of Skimagain." "Elias," said Edward Neyland, his visage sharpening in death, and his last respiration rattling in his throat; "seven fields, I say, and one hundred pieces of gold, to Ruth Rushbrook-do as I say, and God and my spirit shall bless you. Keep them and I shall come from the dead and disinherit ye: keep them, and the widow's curse, which missed me, shall fall on you: keep them and God shall make ye a wonder and a warning to all children who disobey their parents: keep them -and thy young blood shall be spilt on thine own threshold, and thy habitation shall be in hell!" He fell slowly back, when he had done speaking his lips quivered, and a slight convulsion was visible in the fingers of his right hand. "Father," said Elias," answer me but one question-how many-God! it will never do to die now, and so many things unsettled! Father, I say." The old man gave a groan-expanded his hands, and sunk down and expired. "Father," continued the son, "where's the old cheese-mould hid, that's full of coined gold? No, no; he won't answer that. Father, where's the key that hung at your belt, and opened the oaken chest in the dark closet?" and he laid his hand upon a bunch of keys, which hung at the old man's girdle." He heeds not the rattle of his coffer keys -he must be far gone: Father, fa ther," he wrung his hands-" and have ye died without blessing me! I'll answer for't, he'll never speak on this side of time more. There's a pretty piece of business. An he would open his lips again, I would give the widow back a couple of parks to hear but the sound of his tongue."

The young owner of Coldengame stood pondering for a minute's space, at last he shouted, "Mardel-Mardel, ye snail-come here-I have something to tell ye, and something to show ye, that will make ye pleased and sad-Mardel, I say." In answer to this rude summons, a very old woman-a sort of domestic drudge, made her appearance, shaking the husk of flax from her arms, as she came, and murmuring at being taken from her task. "Here, ye grumbling gammerstang-hold him in the chair, till I search for the keys, and lock up the house, and see what I am to call my own. He has been spending money lately as if it had not come by the sweat of the brow-it was no good symptom of health when he became a spendthrift." "Troth, and that's true," said the old domestic; "I saw him, no farther back than Tuesday, give a quarter of a pound of cheese-parings to a beggar's brat; and a bit of money-it could not be less than a halfpenny-to an old man with a white head, who begged hard and long-he has been spending hard lately-but he sleeps soundly. Eh! Elias, this is not the repose of sleep, but of death-if ye keep Coldengame till he awake, ye'll be lord long enough. I trow it was not for nought that the bats fluttered, and the daws screeched, when I kindled a fire in our chamber-chimney yesterday. And now I think on't, I saw two ravens sitting on the house-top, when I rose this morning-a sight I never have seen since Crombie the Scotch cow died-I think I cried away all my tears then-for I can hardly find one to drop by my old master's side." And she put her hands before her face, and raised up a kind of low and melancholy cry-but no drops of sorrow came.

Word soon flew over the district that Edward Neyland was deadmourning made no struggle for mastery with mirth-one would have thought that a millstone had been removed from every bosom. The hinds swore deeper oaths, the maidens sang merrier songs, the dogs barked in chorus, and the very cows seemed to feel an increase of gladness as they tasted the rich pastures. "And so old Coldengame's dead," said one rustic; "if the devil keeps cows, let him make Ned the cowherd-and

there will be more wit in hell than I wot of if he fails to nick him out of some of the best calves." "Aye! dead!" said the second rustic; "dead as a door nail-my dream has had a glorious clearing up. I dreamed I saw old Coldengame dished out like a roasted pig at a bridal dinner, with a sprig of rosemary in his mouth, and the devil dining on him in the shape of a great hooded crow. And speaking of bridals, when will little Will Chessel be married? The parish gives away the bride, and the magistrate recommends the nuptials-and a ripe morsel for the altar she is." "Ripe for the altar!" said a third rustic; 66 as ripe as old Coldengame was for the grave. They say that after he died there remained a fiend within him that made him move, and his lips to mutter-but it must have been a conscientious fiend, for when old Mardel laid him in his last linen, they say he started half up, and cried, Ruth Rushbrook's landmark!' Now d'ye think a dead man's word will stand law?" "Who the devil doubts it, man?" said a fourth rustic; a thing that won't stand in common sense, will stand in lawand precious good law too. I wish I had a dead man's word for a thousand pounds-I would put it into old Fishook's hand-he would make me good money out of it." "But have ye heard," said the fifth rustic, "that old Neddy-nick-the-Devil's to be buried like a man of high degree-like a Bennet or a Mordaunt —a hearse and four horses, no less, to draw him! and ranks of people with torches. Gore! an it will be prime sport to see old Carrion-crow, the cow-feeder, laid in the vaults among our lords and nobles. All's one to the worms-a king or a cowman-and wherefore should I grumble? Are ye going to the foot-ball match to-night, twelve on a side, o'er the moonlight lea? Moll Grabbert will be there and Nan Reamencap will be looking on; and our side will do their best. "Foot-ball!" said the sixth and last rustic; " who would go to foot-ball, and old Coldengame going to be buried! Folk expect he will come to life again d'ye think he'll leave the world, that he loved so dearly, in this quiet and easy way? And if he were so disposed, d'ye think mother Biblebelt

old Ruth Rushbrook, will let him slip decently under the sod, without giving him her benediction? Have I not both seen and heard her stand at Coldengame's chamber-window at midnight, and shout, A widow's curse! a widow's cry! and a widow's tears! Cursed be he who moveth his neighbour's landmark, and robs the widow and the fatherless!' Every body knows the curse of Ruth Rushbrook-who has not heard the curse she has pronounced on the house of Coldengame? and they say it is fulfilling.'

On the day when this conversation happened, an unwonted crowd of people had assembled at Coldengame hall. A hearse, nodding with black horse-hair, and streaming with tears, stood in the midst-and so naturally were the tears painted, that the young heir, and all his dependants, considered weeping a mere superfluity. Elias was decorous in his grief-his grief was beyond tears, He drew on his father's boots, and strutted from room to room, looking at every step on this paternal benefaction, which fitted him, as the apothecary remarked, as a mortar fits a pestle. He endowed his person in an ample coat, with sleeves like carronades, and buttons like butter-prints

and threw aside the lappets, to display a scarlet vest, ornamented with tarnished lace, which had descended into the family, in a somewhat oblique way from Matthew Hopkins, of Manningtree, witchfinder to good King James, who burned and hanged those only possessed of a rich wardrobe and a familiar spirit. The new-born pride of a miser broke out, as it ever breaks, in fits of extravagance. In every chimney there burned a fire-in every window there burned a light-the crows, startled by the unaccustomed glare, rose from their roosting places, and screeched out, according to the interpretation of the crowd, "Fire! fire!"

Hunger and thirst, on that auspicious day, forsook the mansion where they had been born, and fled out of the district. The roasted oxen smoked-the brown ale flowed-and a little rill, that runs in the neighbourhood, lost its ancient name, and assumed that of Brandy-brook-so much was its current augmented by the liqour which drunkenness spilt.