MY OLD VILLAGE. 319 
aminute. 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 clse 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 kcpt 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 
