"I wish all these things had been described in a plainer way, if they mean all this," interjected the youth, impatient of his mystic friend's harangue.
"If!" exclaimed Toby, astonished out of measure that any sane person could, for one moment, doubt what seemed to himself to be so pellucidly clear;—"if!—why, only read it for yourself, Joe, in the 'Celestial Arcana' of the inspired Emanuel of theNorth!"—and, therewith, the agile old philosopher sprang from his chair, and reached the volume from his shelves.
"Never mind, friend Toby: not at present," said Joe, very quietly.
"Well, well," said Toby, "another time then;—but you won't hear me out, or otherwise I could clearly prove what I had begun to say."
"But what confidence can one place in these dreams of your favourite Emanuel?" said Joe.
"Dreams!" retorted the mystic tailor, lowering his voice, and changing the expression of his countenance, until Joe wondered what was the matter with him.—"Dreams! no, no, he didn't dream, Joey. He was favoured with heavenly visions! The angels actually took him several times to heaven,—for he says so himself——"
"And Mahomet said the same," interjected Joe.
"Interrupt me not!" continued Toby, looking still more awfully mysterious:—"I tell thee, the angels took him to heaven, and unfolded to him hidden mysteries! And I tell thee, Joey, that I believe it is possible to attain unto such a pure state here, in this world, that we may converse with angels. I have fasted every day this week till sunset," concluded the poor honest old enthusiast, creeping close to Joe, and speaking almost in his ear,—"and I have faith to believe, that, in a little time, after much prayer, I,even I, shall be permitted to see the angelic world, yea, and to converse with it!"
One of Joe's fellow-apprentices here lifted up the latch, and informed him that Dame Deborah wished he would come home, for the hour was getting late. Pressing his old friend's hand, without looking him in the face, the youth wished him "Good-night!" not a little relieved by the summons of his mistress.
On the morrow, the neighbourhood was thrown into a state of alarm by a cottager having found poor Toby Lackpenny in a swoon upon his shop-board. Finding the experiment attended with such imminent hazard, the fervent enthusiast was persuaded the next night, by Joe, after two hours' indefatigable argumentation, to lay aside his attempt, by devout abstinence, at "purging the frame terrestrial till it could witness the vision celestial."
The occurrence of a very singular incident, however, and some effects that followed it, produced many a misgiving in poor Toby's mind that he had done wickedly in giving up the pursuit of this spiritual and exalted object. It was about the third night after Toby had yielded to Joe's prudent counsel,—and while they were sitting in quiet converse on one of their old themes,—that Toby's cottage door was suddenly burst open by a blow which resembled the stroke of a thunderbolt in the imagination of Joe and his ancient gossip,—and, on the centre of the floor, as suddenly stood Frank Friskit, Joe's younger fellow-apprentice, and the most mischievous scape-grace in the village. The face of the unexpected visitant was like the whitened wall; and his curly locks, as if in consternation at the unwonted pallor of his countenance, stood "nine ways of a Wednesday," as Toby phrased it. His trembling knees and torn dress made confession,—the trembler himself being tongueless with dread,—that Frank had been engaged in some fearful adventure. Joe hastened to support him,—for the lad swooned almost instantly. Toby hastened for cold water to aid his recovery;—and, in a few seconds, Noah Wallhead, Joe's other fellow-apprentice, also entered Toby's cottage, and manifested considerable solicitude about Frank's alarming condition. After a plentiful libation upon his temples, Frank began to come to his senses.
"What's the matter, Franky?" said Toby, gently, as soon as he thought the convalescent was able to bear the inquiry.
"I've—I've seen some'at!" replied Frank, hysterically.
"Seen!—well, but what have you seen, Frank?" asked Joe.
"A bar-ghost, Joe, or else th' old lad!" answered Friskit, with a chattering of the teeth.
Noah Wallhead laughed; but Toby and Joe, seeing the young ghost-seer was now able to sit up without help, requested him, when they had closedthe door, to tell his story at length, and conceal nothing.
The repentant Frank avowed himself to be the guilty perpetrator of a series of malicious attempts upon the natural liberty of Toby Lackpenny's cat! Every urchin in the village of Haxey had been blamed, at one time or other, for the base machination of setting "snickles," or nooses of wire, in the tailor's little garden. The sage Toby profoundly conjectured, and openly maintained, all along, that these wicked devices were intended to ensnare his favourite tabby; but neither he, nor any one else, had ever suspected Frank Friskit to be the foul conspirator, inasmuch as he was so frequently in Toby's cot, and on friendly terms with him. Under the agitation of affright, the conscience-stricken and self-discovered culprit solemnly vowed that he would forsake the way of transgression thenceforth; for he had seen such a sight, while setting a snickle, as he could never forget as long as he lived! How he had got over the hedge he could not tell:—he believed his wits left him as soon as he saw the bar-ghost,—for he could remember nothing besides that queer sight!
"But what was it like, Frank?" asked Joe.
"Like!—why it had a dark-looking face, and a pair of eyes as big as owls' heads!" replied the lad, with a shudder.
"And how big was it?" asked Joe, again.
"I only saw the great foul face grinning andstaring at me, and all on a blaze,—and then it was gone!" said Frank.
Joe received the last answer with a smile,—but, on turning round, when Noah Wallhead touched his elbow, he could not forbear laughter. Noah showed Joe the hollow turnip, with its eyes and mouth, that had so marvellously affrighted the younger apprentice when lit up with a bit of candle,—a common trick among rustic youngsters. Toby, however, was not let into the secret, and took it very ill that Joe, especially, should laugh at what he considered a very alarming narrative. Feeling it incumbent on himself to use this advantageous opportunity for enforcing a homily on reform, he thus addressed himself to the penitent Frank Friskit:—
"Be thankful, foolish boy," he said, "that this evil spirit has done thee no real harm; and, for the future, lay aside thy wicked follies. And, above all, Frank, bethink thee that thou has' been guilty of a great sin to be so long pretending good neighbourship with me, and yet to be all the while plotting how to snickle my poor dumb creatur'. No wonder the bar-ghost should visit thee! Say thy Belief, as well as thy prayers, to-night, Frank,—and be a good lad in futur', and then thou may' hope that the Lord will forgive this deceit, for that's a greater sin than mischief!"—and then, fearing to renew the lad's terrors,—since he already began to tremble afresh,—Toby besought Joe and Noah Wallhead to take him home.
Toby Lackpenny felt "indescribably queer," as he afterwards said,—when left alone that night. He tried to banish the remembrance of Frank's strange description of the trunkless head,—but he found that to be impossible, as long as he sat by the fire,—for every flicker of the flames startled him with a new fear or fancy. So he betook himself to bed. But alas! poor Toby's frame had been so completely weakened by fasting, and his indulgence of the marvelling propensity of his constitution had rendered his understanding and will so powerless, that he felt like a being that has no longer any self-government. The head,—the queer head that Frank had seen,—with its fiery eyes and mouth,—was all Toby could think about, as he lay tossing to and fro in bed:—"What a marvellous sight it must have been!" said Toby to himself,—"a grinning dark face, with eyes as big as owls' heads,"—the boy said;—"all on a blaze in a moment, and then gone!" And the revolting picture, at length, burst in reality,—he believed,—before his eyes! Nor had he the power to banish the uncouth and distorted phantasm,—although he gathered up all his courage and tried to laugh, once:—it was in vain,—the sound of his own forced laughter caused his skin to creep! Then Toby shut his eyes, and turned himself on his pillow, and bravely resolved he wouldsleep,—but it still was in vain:—when his eyelids ached with the compressure he had exerted upon them, he opened his eyes once more,—and lo! there was a real, grinning, goggle-eyed head,—all on fire,—coming towards him, from an immense distance! The trunkless head was a mile off, apparently,—but it was coming,—and what was he to do? It came on rapidly,—and the heart of poor Toby beat loudly against his ribs, and the perspiration started from his brow; and, at length, when the glaring phantom of a head was approaching very near, he made a convulsive effort, and dashed his head beneath the bed-clothes! Half suffocated with heat and fear, he threw the clothes sufficiently off to obtain a breath or two, when, to his unspeakable relief, his incomprehensible tantaliser vanished.
In a few minutes, however, the horrible spectre of a head appeared again, in the immense, immeasurable distance. It approached at the same rapid and threatening rate as before, and with features he thought still more frightful; and, again, he had recourse to the bed-clothes for protection from this terrific visitant. When the head commenced its menacing approach for the third time, Toby's horror exceeded endurance, and he jumped from his low bed, and threw open his little window to catch the cool air. The night breeze speedily dispelled his giddiness, and effectually banished the disturbing figure from his disordered sensory.
Toby stood a few moments attempting to rally his mind, by his old employment of counting the stars in each of the more striking constellations, which were at the time distinctly and brightly visible;—but the hour of midnight, told by the solemn tones of the church clock, warned him to close the window, and endeavour to find the rest he felt he now so much needed. Exhaustion, happily, came to his relief, and Toby forgot the fiery head without a trunk, in more gentle dreams.
Joe heard Toby's relation of this singular visit, the next night, with a degree of phlegm and coolness that amazed the marvel-stricken tailor. Nor could Toby receive for gospel any of the natural explanations of his young friend: it was in vain that Joe recounted what he had lately read of Nicolai, the printer of Berlin, and his wondrous diseased visions,—it was equally in vain that the youth strove to shew Toby that the very manner of the strange head's visit,—so like what was called "phantasmagoria" and other optical delusions,—proved, to a dead certainty, that it all arose from over-excitement of the brain. Toby poohed and pshawed at every thing Joe said,—and was nearer than Joe had ever thought him towards calling his former disciple by some offensive name. The lad was compelled to desist from his attempt to reason Toby out of his uneasy conviction, that he had actually been visited by some evil agent as a punishment for his infractionof the vow he took never to eat food till sunset,—that so he might attain to communion with heavenly angels!
Left to himself, the stricken idealist fell into still more pernicious errors. Witchcraft, was the next delusion he was fated to experience. Not that Toby ever imagined himself to be either a witch or a wizard; but he fell, most obstinately, into the belief,—ay, as obstinately as the knight of La Mancha himself,—that he was under the mischievous power of some who dealt with wicked spirits and practised enchantments. His imagination in this, as in earlier instances of its treacherousness to his judgment, made a rapid, though gradual, abandonment of all self-evident and common-sense conclusions, even in the every-day affairs of life. That nest of temptation—his library—as, also, in the case of the world-known Quixote, was, again, the source from which Toby Lackpenny drew the written proofs for the reality of his credulous vagaries. "Gloomy Glanvil," as critical Toby had called him in the days of his higher spiritual-mindedness, was the superstitious expounder of doctrine to whom the philosophical tailor now attached himself. How could he deny that a compact with evil spirits was possible to fallen human creatures, when he had believed, so heartily, with Swedenborg, that it was possible for sinful man to hold communion with celestial ministers? Besides, was there not the indubitable history of the Witchof Endor, and innumerable other references to dealers with familiar spirits, in the volume of Holy Writ? And were they likely—these wicked and envious agencies of the "evil eye"—to look on any human being so maliciously as on him who had aspired to converse with good angels? Would they not feel an instinctive antipathy towards him? He was convinced they would, as soon as he inwardly asked the question.
He had just lost his thimble while he was thinking thus; and though he hunted for it a full hour, he was not able to find it! What though this had often fallen to his share of ill luck before? It was not, now, to be accounted for as an accident. No: it had been spirited away: he was bewitched; he was sure he was. It was by petty acts of mischief that the withered hags of hell usually commenced their annoyance of those whose aspirations after purity had raised their devilish hate. His case, he feared, was too sure to prove a sorrowful one, for he knew not how to counterwork their malevolence. What a dunce he had been to neglect that branch of occult study! But it might not be too late to acquire even a profound knowledge of it; and so he would set about it in right earnest.
And, poor Toby! hedidset about it in earnest, insomuch that he sewed side-seams to tops and bottoms of new garments, and stitched circular patches on square rents, and squares on circular apertures inthe damaged attire he undertook to repair, and mislaid his thread where he could not find it for hours,—and pricked his thumbs and fingers, half-callous though they were, with the needles,—and heated his goose till he burnt the cloth,—and fell into blunders and mishaps of most awful consequence to his professional reputation, day by day, more thickly and disastrously, until the very disasters themselves convinced him that he was approaching a climax of knowledge in the gloomy science of which he had now become so devoted a student. The witches knew—foul, cunning, devil-dealers that they were—they knew, although he did not, as yet, kenwhothey were, that he was about to become a match for them; and, therefore, they were thus bedevilling him and his cloth, and goose, and shears, and thimble, and needles, in this "hey-day, hide-and-seek, burn-it-and-bother-it," sort of way.
Toby would not "give it up," however, torment him as they might—the spiteful fiendlings! He still read and thought, and thought and read, and compared the descriptions of feature which his books contained, with the physiognomies of all who visited his abode, until he entertained a shrewd suspicion of who were the real and identical, though secret, practisers of all this infernal mischief. Yet, as some of these had been, for years, his best and kindest employers, the witch-seer found it go sorely against the grain of his affectionate nature to provoke a quarrelwith them. Often did he chide his spirit when he had permitted any of these suspicious visiters to depart with heartfelt thanks for the kindly present of a cake, or a new cheese, or a dish of butter, or half-score of eggs, with which they had coupled their order for the repair of a coat, or nether habit; and as often did he resolve to prepare himself against their next visit for a red-hot quarrel.
Months elapsed before the amiable-hearted visionary could "screw his courage to the sticking-place," so as to enable him to "fall out" with his friends and benefactors: not that he feared their witchery, or the heavier harm it might bring upon him, when he had defied it. He soon lost all dread of that kind. It was his true-heartedness—his genuine gratitude—that precious quality which a rogue never feels, though he talks the most loudly about it, but which honest and noble natures cannot stifle, even when warm friends have become persecuting foes,—it was that superlative virtue which struggled to keep its citadel in gentle Toby's heart's core, and the contest with which was so troublous to him. Happily for the poor mistaken philosopher, his loving-heartedness had rendered him so dear to all who knew him, that none would believe he was in his right mind, when he suddenly became so discourteous and angry-tempered.
"Pr'ythee, Goody, what think'st ta?" said Dolly Dustit, the little hard-working flax-woman, to Peggy the staid housekeeper at Farmer Robinson's,—"isneighbour Toby growing queerish in his heed, wi' so much book-larning,—or, what the plague can be the matter wi' him? I asked him to tell me what yerbs I should get to mak' a green plaister for our Jack's sore scaup, and he grinned like a fummard, and tell'd ma to gooa to the divvil, and as th' oud lad was a friend o' mine he would mak' ma my plaisters, with a witness! Doesn't ta think he's gone stranny?"
"For sartain there's summat the matter wi' his wits, from what our maister was saying about him this morning," answered Peggy; "but who can wonder at it, Dolly? I wonder his knowledge-box hasn't gone wrong-side up'ards many a year since!"
"And Maister Robinson has had some foul speech from him, has he, then, Peggy?" asked the little flax-woman, curious to learn more of Toby's vagaries.
"Sich foul speech as maks one queer to mention it," replied Peggy, though she evidently wanted to unburthen herself of it to her gossip, and told the shuddering news in the next breath:—"he tell'd th' farmer that his breeches smelled o' brimstone, and he wouldn't put a stitch in 'em to please ayther him, or the divvil his maister!"
"The Lord ha' marcy on us, Peggy!" ejaculated the honest little flax-woman, "it's a sore thing to think on; but poor Toby's brain's addled at last, I'm varry sewer. He's as harmless as a lamb, when he's right: one nivver heeard a foul word come out of his mouth. I'm varry sorry for him, Peggy——"and so saying, Dolly Dustit sped on to her daily work in the flax field, more deeply grieved at what she believed to be poor Toby's affliction, than at his repulsive treatment of her application for his medical advice.
Such conferences of inquiry, wonder, and regret, began to arise daily, in the ancient little town of Haxey, as Toby advanced further into the spirit and essence of witch-knowing; but the erring philosopher, at length, set the whole village into uproar by telling no less-beloved a personage than Dame Deborah Thrumpkinson, herself, that he believed she was a witch,—nay the queen and ring-leader of all the witches in the Isle of Axholme,—and, to complete his madness, Toby actually strove to eject the venerable old woman from his cottage! Fortunately, his corporal weakness prevented him from effecting the rudeness which he thus attempted; and the hearty old dame, though pitying, rather than censuring his folly, felt disposed to try the effect of a somewhat vigorous reproof of it. Seizing the lean, attenuated student by the collar, she laid him, with one sinewy lift, fairly on his back, breathless and fear-stricken, upon the shop-board.
"'Od rabbet thee, and thy fizzlegig foolery!" she exclaimed, setting her teeth together, as she was wont when moved more strongly than usual, "what maggots hast thou got into thy star-gazing noddle, now? A witch, indeed! Who will take thee to bea wizard for saying so, thou dreaming old owl? Marry, come up! I say a witch, too!"—and then she shook poor Toby till his teeth chattered, and he would fain have uttered a loud alarm, but durst not speak, for the life of him.
The dame left him to recover his courage, and laughed heartily, in spite of some slight feeling of vexation, as she told the story to her customers during the day. A few hours served to bring a crowd round the tailor's dwelling, though none would enter it; and, till night-fall, Toby's ears were assailed with epithets which shook his nerves till he wished himself a thousand miles off, as he afterwards said to Joe. During the evening, the elder and more influential members of the little population of Haxey went from house to house expressing their deep regret for Toby Lackpenny's lunacy,—for they decided that hewaslunatic,—and conjuringly besought the younger and more frivolous people to desist from persecution of one who had always been so good and kind-hearted a neighbour, and was now under a visitation of Providence that rendered him an object of commiseration rather than ridicule. And so the victim of imagination was delivered from the storm of persecution which he had foreboded would be renewed on the succeeding day.
Desirous, on her part, of making Toby feel the value of her neighbourship, Dame Deborah never crossed his threshold on that day. Toby was thusleft a solitary; and yet his mental disease had not yet reached a stage that would render solitude curative. On the contrary, it permitted his prurient imagination to become more mischievous in its influence.
A neat little dove-cote was a conspicuous rural adornment to the ancient gable of Dame Deborah's dwelling; and its cooing habitants were familiarly acquainted with the tailor's threshold, and even with his cottage-floor,—whither they were often attracted by the crumbs Toby spread upon it, when his favourite tabby had strayed forth from the cot, and so could give no alarm to these feathered visitants. Toby had been reading a full description, during that solitary morning, in one of his witchery-books, of the way in which the most powerful of all charms might be prepared for subjugating a witch or a wizard; and the entrance of one of Dame Deborah's pigeons, into his cottage, seemed to give him the opportunity he coveted of testing the efficacy of the prescribed charm. He wilily closed his door, and after a brief struggle, captured the bird,—which he, forthwith, secured, by shutting it up in the oaken corner cupboard, which served him for wardrobe, larder, and coal-cellar.
The day wore on, and the philosopher, with a struggle against his misgivings that whispered "cruelty and barbarity," reckoned mightily on the triumph his newly acquired knowledge was to givehim over the powers of darkness as soon as night arrived, and the murky hour of twelve approached. He sharpened a knife till the edge was most deadly keen; he made up a good fire: he collected, at least, one hundred pins from the patches on his shop-board and in his drawers: he prepared the string by which the dove's heart was to be hung to roast; and he drove in the nail to which the string was to be tied.
And now the black midnight hour was near, and trembling with agitation that might almost be called horror, Toby Lackpenny took the poor fluttering pigeon out of its hiding-place, and took the fierce knife into his hand to be ready to dash into its breast as soon as the church clock struck the first stroke of twelve. Need he had for self-possession and preparedness of mind and act, in order to complete his necromantic feat like a true adept,—for although he was not to wound the bird till he heard the first stroke of twelve, yet he must have its heart out, alive, and have it stuck full of pins, and placed down at the fire to roast,—and all before the church clock had told the last stroke of twelve!
"Pshaw!—nonsense—what a chicken-hearted fool I am!" said poor Toby to himself, as he stood trying to confine the bird's wings with one hand, and holding his sharp knife in the other: "let me think of the victory I shall obtain over these agents of the Evil One,—and not give way in this childish manner!"
But Tobydidgive way, and could not help it; as he said to Joe when he afterwards described this strange temptation to his beloved young friend. The faster the moments flew, and the more nearly the magical moment approached, the more Toby trembled, and the more loudly his heart beat against his ribs, and the more terrifically his conscience menaced his peace, till—as the last half minute was elapsing, he threw down the knife, and releasing the pigeon from his grasp, declared aloud, though out of the hearing of every human being, that he neither could nor would hurt the poor harmless dove, even if all the witches on earth, and all the fiends they dealt with in the other place, should, thenceforth, have power to torment him every minute of his remaining life.
There was an end of Toby's grand achievement of power over all the witches and wizards with whom he believed the Isle of Axholme to be infested! The hour had passed over, and it was too late—perhaps, for ever—for him to perform the all-potent immolation,—since the sacrifice of the same pigeon would be of no efficacy, after it had been prepared, and yet remained unslaughtered. His better nature felt satisfaction at the thought of the pigeon being still alive, though his superstitious ambition led him to experience a deep shade of regret that he had not had hardihood of spirit sufficient to enable him to grasp the grand ideal prize which was so nearlywithin his reach. Regrets were useless, however, he reflected; and so he quenched his blazing fire, and lay down to rest.
In the morning, a new temptation awaited the fanatical witch-finder. Forgetting that Tabby could easily pounce upon the pigeon while left on the cottage-floor, though she could not get at it in the cupboard,—Toby had gone to bed without concerning himself about the safety of the bird, being so much absorbed with the feeling of satisfaction that he had spared its life. No sooner had her master fallen asleep, however, and the bird placed its bill under its wing for taking rest, than Tabby slily seized her prize and butchered it for a secret banquet. Her bloody mouth and glistening eyes, together with the scattered feathers, proclaimed her deed, most unmistakeably, as soon almost as Toby had opened his eyes and looked round his humble dwelling.
A new conviction sprang into his capricious brain: Tabby was a witch, self-transfigured into a cat! There could be no doubt of it—not the shadow of a doubt. How strange that he had not marked her particular habits before!—and yet, it was a fact, now he came to think of it,—that she purred and squinted, just like the transfigured cat-witches he had lately read of in his profound, mystical books. As for the pigeon, she hated it, of course, knowing the purpose for which it had been brought thither. It was as clear as the sun at noon,—though all catsliked pigeon flesh if they could get it,—that Tabby devoured this pigeon because she was a witch, and it had been secreted as a forthcoming sacrificial charm for overthrowing witch-power!
What, then, was the discerning Lackpenny to do, under this astounding discovery? He resolved to put an end to Tabby's life, by the peculiar and effectual mode in which alone a cat-witch could be destroyed: she must be hung up by the heels over his cottage-door to die a prolonged but irredeemable death! Toby shuddered; but he was convinced it was the only righteous and wise way to be taken,—and so he set about carrying it into effect. Tabby inflicted some vengeful wounds on her old master while he was in course of tying the cord round her hind feet, and then hoisting her up over the door,—but Toby fulfilled his office of executioner—thrust on him by fate and duty, he believed—very stoutly this time—in spite of the aversion he felt at taking away the life of a dumb creature which had sung "three-thrum" on his hearth so often, and borne him company through so many days of poverty, although days of content. He hung up his cat; but how was he to stop her cries?
A crowd again gathered round his house, and demanded that he should release his cat. But Toby was more resolute that he would not, the more they insisted on it. Dame Deborah, at length, stepped from her dwelling, and, cutting the poor animalloose, broke Toby's counter-enchantment at a stroke. Then throwing open the tailor's door, and fixing her eyes upon him very threateningly, she told him she would certainly help to hang him by the heels,—if ever he attempted again to treat his poor harmless cat in so barbarous a manner.
Toby spake not one word. His recollection of the fearful shake the aged dame had lately given him, rendered him apprehensive that she might renew it, and so he kept prudent silence.
The crowd gradually departed, and left the baffled philosopher-visionary, once more, to solitary reflection—but it was nowhungryreflection,—and proved to be most effectual in dispelling his wild fancies. Shame under the keen reproofs of his neighbours, and failure of his cupboard, contributed to weary him of his witch notions,—so that on the following morning he was fain to receive a little present from Dame Deborah, with thanks for her kindness.
Gradually, he became so entirely ashamed of his recent eccentricities that he made earnest apologies to all whom he had treated with rudeness,—and all were so ready to forgive, and so happy to see him restored to a neighbourly temper,—that Toby found it easy to recover his former ease of mind and habitual good humour.
The longer Toby lived the less likely was it for one so ardently imaginative by constitution, to sink into the mere matter-of-fact quietude of thought thatcharacterised the majority of his neighbours. On the contrary, as he grew older, his brain became more and more prolific of imaginations; but, happily, they were increasingly of a more pleasing nature as he increased in years. In spite of all his life-long dreams and fancies, and in spite of straitness in his means of living, Toby was a happy old man; for, with all the startling activity of his imagination, Toby had never corrupted his bodily vigour by a single act of intemperance. When Joe returned to bury his aged foster-mother, Toby walked, by the help of two sticks, to the grave-side, declaring that he saw two lovely angels walking before the coffin, all the way from the dame's door, and he knew they would come for him next. Whether the yearning of his desire and imagination, or the great effort he made to attend the funeral, most assisted to hasten his end, cannot be said,—but he died the very next day,—with a heaven of smiles on his aged face,—and with the words "heaven" and "angels" on his tongue.
THE END.
London:Printed byA. Spottiswoode,New-Street Square.