MY OLD VILLAGE. 319 



a minute. At the sound of her shrewish 'yang-yang' 

 down came the old man from the bank, and so one dog 

 fetched out the lot. The three were exactly alike some- 

 how. Beside these diamond sculls he had a big gun, 

 with which he used to shoot the kingfishers that came 

 for the little fish ; the number he slaughtered was very 

 great ; he persecuted them as Domitian did the flies : 

 he declared that a kingfisher would carry off a fish 

 heavier than itself. Also he shot rooks, once now and 

 then strange wild fowl with this monstrous iron pipe, 

 and something happened with this gun one evening 

 which was witnessed, and after that the old fellow was 

 very benevolent, and the punt was free to one or two 

 who knew all about it. There is an old story about the 

 stick that would not beat the dog, and the dog would 

 not bite the pig, and so on ; and so I am quite sure that 

 ill-natured cur could never have lived with that ' yang- 

 yang ' shrew, nor could any one else but he have turned 

 the gear of the hatch, nor have endured the dog and the 

 woman, and the constant miasma from the stagnant 

 waters. No one else could have shot anything with 

 that cumbrous weapon, and no one else could row that 

 punt straight. He used to row it quite straight, to the 

 amazement of a wondering world, and somehow supplied 

 the motive force the stick which kept all these things 

 going. He is gone, and, I think, the housekeeper too, 

 and the house has had several occupants since, who 

 have stamped down the old ghosts and thrust them out 

 of doors. 



After this the cottages and houses came in little 

 groups, some up crooked lanes, hidden away by elms as 

 if out of sight in a cupboard, and some dotted along 

 the brooks, scattered so that, unless you had connected 

 them all with a very long rope, no stranger could have 



