The Baron Court of Little Brought-in. 377 



iiKed with their own" or with other folks's either. It only remains 

 to say something of the luds, before we proceed to the doings of the 

 court; but this is necessary, as nobody can rightly understand a 

 history without some glimmering notions of the subjects of that history. 



To define or describe the luds, is quite a poser, and it is rendered 

 more difficult than it perhaps might have been, by some of those who 

 have tried it blackening the one side, and others white-washing the 

 other side, till between them they have made it look more two-faced 

 than Janus; and thus it is precisely what any body, who can think, 

 may think of it. 



The luds Spoutfire are, especially, a puzzle upon earth; there 

 being nothing in Little Brought-in, or out of it, with which they can 

 be compared. They are luds in life rent not in tail, and thus they 

 are incapable of continuing their species. Of course we do not mean 

 that they are physically disqualified, though there are some Spout- 

 fires who are stated to be so, but these are not recognised as luds, 

 or admitted into the cushion chamber. They arrive at their ludship 

 by hopping twice, bis hop as one would say ; and the effects of 

 their hops are curious. They cannot take the second hop without 

 having taken the first one, and the effect of this first one is a total 

 disqualification for the chamber of the comings, even though they 

 substantiate the plea of being " good for nothing else," which many 

 of them can do ; and they thus, in a way, swear to a total abandonment 

 of the affairs of this world. The second hop quite undoes all that is 

 done by the first hop. The first is clean out of the world of fleshes 

 into that of spirits ; but the second is back to ihe fleshes, on which a 

 lud Spoutfire may fatten like a porpess. Thus, though a lud Spout- 

 fire may indulge in ardent spirits ad nauseam^ he is as much a lud of 

 the cushion chamber for all manner of worldly business as any other 

 lud whatsoever; and a title to do worldly business in the cushion 

 chamber gives license to do worldly business in any chamber within 

 the three manors. 



The luds Terrible stand upon rather a different footing ; they are 

 very old, it being maintained by some that " the giants before the 

 flood," " the Anakims," and figuratively "the bulls of Bashan," were 

 luds. A lud founded the largest village in Hangland, and must have 

 been a terrible fellow, for the gallows is still kept up in a place called 

 after "the Old Bully," near another called Lud. The ludship ef 

 these Terrible luds descends by a sort of equivocal generation, not 

 in the blood, for the mother may be any body, and so may the father 

 if a lud stands sponsor, and folly and fatuity are no disqualification 

 for the chamber. Nobody can exactly tell in what ludship consists, 

 but there is a power in it which can triumph over all the contingen- 

 cies upon earth, and no deprivation or depravity can affect it, for the 

 most arrant fool or the veriest rogue may be every inch a lud, as 

 much as the most able and upright man under the moon or in it. 

 We must, however, let the court tell its own story, which we shall 

 try to do in our next chapter. Wishing all understanding to the 

 reader, we are 



THE GHOST OF SWIFT. 



