There was an aged pauper who lived on the charity of the little ladies,
and whom it was Miss Betty's practice to employ to do light weeding in
the fields for heavy wages. This venerable person was toddling to his
home in the gloaming with a barrow load of Miss Betty's new potatoes,
dexterously hidden by an upper sprinkling of groundsel and hemlock, when
the Lubber-fiend sprang out from behind an elder-bush, ran at the old
man with his black head, and knocked him, heels uppermost, into the
ditch. The wheelbarrow was afterwards found in Miss Betty's farmyard,
quite empty.
And when the cowherd (who had his own opinion of the aged pauper, and it
was a very poor one) went that evening to drink Lob Lie-by-the-fire's
health from a bottle he kept in the harness room window, he was nearly
choked with the contents, which had turned into salt and water, as fairy
jewels turn to withered leaves.
But luck had come to Lingborough. There had not been such crops for
twice seven years past.
The lay-away hens' eggs were brought regularly to the kitchen.
The ducklings were not eaten by rats.
No fowls were stolen.
The tub of pig-meal lasted three times as long as usual.
The cart-wheels and gate-hinges were oiled by unseen fingers.
The mushrooms in the croft gathered themselves and down on a dish in the
larder.
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