46 THE ORPHAN BOY. 



ISTo wonder, with such teaching and with such almost sole 

 companionship, that as years went on and the aged man sank 

 down towards second childhood, the sickly, decrepit child 

 seemed to grow up (though he grew but little) into old age. 

 n countenance, in step, in speech, he was never young ; he 

 was as unable as unwilling to join the sturdy villagers in their 

 joyous sports ; and when, on rare occasions, he chanced to come 

 among them, although he was as gentle and harmless a creature 

 as ever drew breath, the timid of the crew would keep aloof 

 and eye him with distrustful looks, while the bold and bad 

 jeered at his deformity, and gave him the nick-names of "My 

 Lord" and "Tombstone Tim." 



AVhen about fifteen, Tim lost his grandfather, his only 

 friend. The office he had performed for so many, another 

 did for him ; the lowly bed of the late sexton being made, by 

 his own particular desire, between that of his son and daughter 

 (the orphan's parents) and the grand old monument which had 

 been the pride of his life, at all events, of his latter years. All 

 through the progress of his gradual decline and last illness, poor 

 Timothy had been the sole and tender nurse of him who, through 



tl ' D 



the previous course of his own feeble, blighted days, had been 

 his only supporter ; and the thin, weak, effeminate hands, 

 unfit for the mattock and the plough, were well suited to 

 prop the head and smooth the pillow of declining age. 



Tor the last fourteen years, from the period nearly when his 

 orphan grandson had been thrown upon his charge, old Tom- 



