SELF-REPROVAL. 61 



woman a reputed hoarder, yet the most notorious hedge- 

 breaker in the neighbourhood, and as for her lodger (so 

 rarely abroad in daylight), we had scarcely seen him ; though 

 we had heard and often smiled at the popular prejudice which 

 associated, in more than resemblance of name and person, the 

 crippled young Tomkins with the dwarfish effigy on the Tom- 

 kins' Tomb. But as we saw him that morning, with his 

 distorted form, his shrunken legs as they dangled powerlessly 

 over the stout sinewy arm of his athletic bearer, which more 

 than equalled them in size his pale face resting on the tall 

 countryman's shoulder, looking paler as contrasted with a 

 countenance ruddy with health and exercise, and more ghastly 

 from the wounded cheek and dark matted hair clinging to 

 the temples, the countenance rigid as in death, and stamped 

 with one expression that of perpetual suffering, heightened 

 only by accidental pain ; as we saw the poor youth thus, our 

 heart smote us for not having seen and known more of him 

 before. Ah ! it told us, then our butterfly rambles and re- 

 searches occupy us overmuch, and have made us think too 

 little of this our afflicted neighbour ! But this was a time, 

 not for thinking, but for acting ; and, seeing there was no one 

 of all the lookers-on disposed to make a single effort towards 

 saving the life which (if not extinct already) hung trembling 

 on a thread, we despatched a boy in the crowd for the nearest 

 surgeon ; and finding the old mistress of the house utterly 

 incapable of thinking or doing anything, we took possession 



