658 THE LOVE-CHILD. 



imagination had been powerfully assisted or excited by reality. 

 Squire Patch was Satan, cast out of the herd of swine : he vomited 

 bloodhounds in couples an eternal succession of twins fac-similes 

 of Sin and Death and these the swine devoured. Meanwhile my 

 grandmother danced on an upturned washing-tub, and her reverend 

 donkey brayed. Each of the pigs and there were millions seemed 

 identical with our Sir Simon but it is necessary to explain. 



My grandmother, as I have said, was a washerwoman about half 

 a grade above a pauper ; but proud, reckless, and independent as any 

 supreme lord of lives and property in the universe. Although earn- 

 ing but a scanty subsistence by the labour of her hands in her old 

 age, after having spent the early and middle part of life in compa- 

 rative opulence she feared nothing she cared for nobody. She 

 had prospectively paid for her bit of burial-ground in the parish 

 church. Her coffin had, for years, been under the bed ; its 

 cover possessed hinges and a lock and key ; the solemn utensil 

 contained her valuables a little tea a little sugar the keg of 

 cider the small stone jar of illegitimate white brandy her thin-worn 

 wedding-ring which, unlike herself, not being fitted to endure hard 

 work, had snapped a lock of Billy Timms' hair, the youth of her 

 maiden love great grandfather's battered Bible, on the yellow fly- 

 leaf of which was scrawled a register of the birth of every babe born 

 in the family for three generations, except myself- several old silver 

 thimbles, pierced through by severe use, in her better days a gaudy 

 garnet brooch three singular silk gowns my grand-uncle's breeches 

 with five bond Jtde gold buttons, formed of seven shilling pieces, at 

 each of the knees several certificates of marriage, stuffed for better 

 security into the toes of so many high-heeled shoes a padusoy and a 

 stuffed parrot the sight of which was the only thing in the world 

 that could make her shed tears. God knows why I never asked, and 

 I never found out. She always produced it with the Bible on Sunday 

 mornings, when it was her invariable practise to take out her spec- 

 tacles they had but half a glass left and read me a chapter. On 

 these occasions she frequently talked of teaching me my letters ; but 

 the next day a career of steam and soap-suds was commenced, which 

 lasted throughout the week, and my education was forgotten, until 

 the Sabbath appearance of her battered Bible and its never-failing 

 accompaniment the green poll-parrot with blue cheeks. 



To carry home her linen she always had a Ned that is, always 

 within my memory ; and I could hardly believe Blue Peter, the 

 poacher, when he first told me that our fine, tall, stately, stout, long- 

 eared friend, who looked as though he had ever been just as he was, had 

 actually pined for some time about the dead body of his dam on the 

 common, and would have died without an owner, if granny hadn't 

 kindly taken to the ragged, miserable foal, and reared him. Poor as 

 we were, the Ned was always fat and sleek his neigh could be heard 

 for miles he pranced with pride, and to him were ascribed the 

 finest mules on the Caddiscombe railroad. He was now grey as a 

 badger with age, but his youthful energy had not departed. Though 

 grisly, he gallopped most gallantly beneath the weight of granny 



and her customers' linen. He worked only two days in the week- 

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