allamona a silent place, but the master recked little of that. The Deemster kept no company, or next to none. He dismissed all his domestics except one, and Hommy-beg, who had been gardener hither

he hearth was empty. Hardly a sound broke the dead quiet of the solitary place, save when some litigious farmer who had caught his neighbor in the act of trespass brought him, there and then, for judgment, to the Deemster's house by that most summary kind of summons, the force of superior muscles. On such occasions the plaintiff

the Bishop, Mona would be set on her feet, and the biggest baby of the four there present would slide down on to his hands and knees and creep along the floor with the great little man astride him, and whinny like a horse, or perhaps bark like a dog, and pretend to leap the four-bar gate of the baby's chair tumbled down on its side. And when Dan would slide from his saddle, and the restless horseman would turn coachman and tug the mane of his steed, and all the Bishop's long hair would tumble over his face, what shrieks of laughter, what rolling on the ground and tossing up of bare legs! And then when supper-time came, and the porridge would be brought in, and little Mona would begin to whimper because she had to eat it, and Ewan to fret because it was barley porridge and not oaten cake, and Dan to devour his share with silent industry, and then bellow for more than was good for him, what schemes the good Bishop resorted to, what promises he made, what crafty tricks he learned, what an artful old pate his simple head suddenly became! And then, when Kerry came with the tub and the towels, and three little naked bodies had to be bathed, and the Bishop stole away to his unfinished sermon, and little Mona's wet hands clung to Kerry's dress, and Ewan, standing bolt-upright in the

that hung blackest over Bishop's Court, a world of happiness was crowded into them. Then when Ewan was six years old, and Danny and Mona wer

are ruining the children, and I

n, after a pause, he said, "No, no, Thorkell, you do

as the world will treat them when they have nothing but the world

orkell," said the Bishop,

spoil the child,

he Bishop in a quivering voi

ee times a day, and that was to build up their bone and brain; they were bathed in cold water summer and winter, and that was to make them hardy; they wore frocks with low necks, and that was

ble it out of its propriety with their busy fingers, as with Cousin Danny's powerful assistance they had filled and tumbled Bishop's Court, until every room in the comfortable old place seemed to say to you with a wink and a nod, "A child lives here; this is his own home, and he is master of the whole house." But when they stole away to their own little room at the back, where no fire burned lest they should grow "nesh," not all the masks that were ever made to make life look like a sorry tragedy could have hidden the joy that was always w

s, but that only meant that the Bishop had to be his playmate even more than before, and the Bishop was nothing loth. Away they ran through the copse together, these boon companions, and if the Bishop hid behind a tree, of course Danny found him, and if it was Danny that hid, of course the Bishop searched high and low, and never once heard the merry titter tha

little man's cry through three stout stone walls and up two flights of stairs. If the child fell and hurt himself half a mile from the house, the Bishop at home fel

r threatening his darling; but Kerry seemed, by an exercise of some nameless faculty, to know the child's whereabouts at any moment of day or night. Half blind at the time of the birth of little

e spinning-wheel, "the wee craythur'

answered; "I've only this

d the fugitive, who had clambered in through an open window, lighting t

tle hemlock is sister to the big hemlock';" which was as much as to say that the small sin was akin to the g

ld is but a child," said the Bis

dings with a roguish look, and when the Bishop's face was in the bowl he whipped up the spectacles and pushed them down his neck between his frock and his breast. With a whirr and a puff the Bishop shook the water from his face and dried it, and when the lash comb had tossed back his long hair he stretched his hand out for his spectacles. He could not feel them, and when he looked he could not see them, and then he called on Danny to search for them, and straightway the rogue was on h

re the g

ughed ve

my glasses,

laughed st

he hearth-rug, or under the seat of the settle, or inside the shaving pot on the hearth. And all the time Danny, with his hands clasped under his haunc

ng was; and two minutes afterward the Bishop strode into the library through a line of his clergy, who ro

ay," he said, gravely, and then he se

muggy room, made darker still by twenty long black coats, there shot a gleam of laughing sunshine-Danny himself, at

by blind Kerry, who came in hot pursuit of him, he shook his head and lo

ld with kindness. May you never he

d on the restored spectacles, and rubb

e Archdeacon continued: "let a child be dealt with in his

is a good man, ten to one the world will whip him-let

on, "but what of the injunction

t his head and

his fob-pocket. But as for Danny and his cousins, and the cousins and Danny, they usually stood a while and inspected one another with that solemnity and aloofness which is one of the phenomena of child manners, and then, when the reserve of the three hard little faces had been softened by a smile, they would forthw

another daily. There was only one school to which they could be sent, and that was the parish school, the same that

ot caring a ha'porth if his name was the name of the Deemster or the name of Billy the Gawk. Hand-in-hand, Danny and Ewan, with Mona between, would skip and caper along the sands down to where the gray rocks of the Head jutted out into the sea and bounded the universe; Mona prattling and singing, shaking out her wavy hair to the wind, dragging Danny aside to look at a seaweed, and pulling Ewan to look at a shell, tripping down to the water's edge, until the big bearded waves touched her boots, and then back once more with a half-frightened, half-affected, laughter-loaded

-up fight with every ruffian under twelve. Then, down among the fishermen on the beach, what sport! Knocking about among the boats, pulling at the oars like m

e happy the lad feels ins

sand-boy learned all the old salt's racy sayings, and wen

kew, "the long cat's tail was going off at a slant a while ago, and now the round thick skate yonder is hanging mortal low." "The

word arithmetic," the schoolmaster might ask when the boys were ranged about his desk in class. And Danny would answer with a face of tragic solemnity, "Twice one are two, twice two are four." "Very good," the schoolmaster would reply. "And now, sir, repeat me your multiplication table-twice times." And then, while the master held his head aside, as if in the act of intent listening, and the other boys twisted their faces to hide their grins or sniggered openly, Danny, still with the face of a judge, would repeat a paraphrase of the familiar li

k birched the informant soundly. Nor did the reward of his treachery end with birching. It did not take half an hour for the report of both birching and treachery to travel by that swiftest of telephones, the schoolboy tongue, through that widest of kingdoms, the world of school; and the same evening, while Mona, on her way home, was gathering the bluebells that grew on the lea of the yellow-tipped go

ttage on a stick, and with that weapon she made for Da

n-extraordinary-would the Lord think it now-it's in the b

wn on the craven traitor who bellowed in his grip, when all at once a horse's feet were tramping about their limbs where they st

de on the right of the horse, and t

t Danny stood there panting, his eyes like fire, his fists clinched,

mster, pointing with a contemptuous gesture to

said the woman. "

s. Kerruish?" said t

behind her, plucked off his hat, ran her wrinkled hand ov

ok at him while you're here. Did you ever see his picture before? Never?

Deemster, in a low, thick tone, and so

boy back and pointing with her stick at Danny, "he'll have his h