200 OCTOBER 



pair of chickens for Monday, and the weather being 

 very warm I desired him to slaughter them on 

 Sunday instead of on Saturday. He hesitated 

 somewhat at the order, but I did not think that 

 even he could regard it as a deadly sin to twist a 

 couple of necks on the Sabbath, so I did not wait 

 for any reply. To-day I hear that he sat up on 

 Sunday night until ten minutes past twelve with the 

 fowls in a hen-coop in his kitchen, and then, Monday 

 having arrived, he was able to do the deed without 

 sin. I recollect that about Whitsuntide, immedi- 

 ately after his conversion, he was the only possessor 

 of early cabbage in the village, and on a Sunday 

 morning Sterculus cast longing eyes at his brother's 

 cabbage-bed as he went by, and begged for a head 

 for his dinner. Meshach said nothing. He took 

 his great clasp knife from his pocket, opened 

 it and laid it on the hedge, retired into his 

 cottage, and struck up a favourite hymn on the 

 concertina 



" The devil and me, we can't agree, 

 I hate him and he hates me." 



When the hymn was finished he came back to 

 the cabbage-bed, and sorrowfully noted a gap in its 

 symmetry, while he replaced in his trouser pocket 

 the knife which lay almost where he had left it. 

 Sterculus told me the story the next day, with many 

 grunts of contempt for his brother's "old-fashioned 

 notions," as he called it. 



Meshach's mother, with whom he lives, is a 

 grumbling soul, who demands much attention. She 

 was unfortunate enough to catch cold on the day 



