[324-37] _Chows her cood_ means _chews her cud_. [324-38] _Weel-hain'd_ means _carefully preserved_. [324-39] _Kebbuck_ is _cheese_. [324-40] This line, in English, would read _And often he is urged_ (to take more) _and often he calls it good_. [324-41] A _towmond_ is a _twelvemonth_, a _year_. [324-42] _Since flax was in blossom_. [324-43] The _ha'-Bible_ is the family Bible, which is kept in the _hall_, or the best room. [324-44] _Ance_ is the Scotch form of _once_. [324-45] That is, his hat. [324-46] _Lyart_ means _gray_. [324-47] _Haffets_ means _temples_. [325-48] _Wales_ means _chooses_. CHARLES AND MARY LAMB One of the most tragic, and at the same time one of the most heroic, of true stories is that of Charles and Mary Lamb, the brother and sister who are known to millions of young people as the writers of _Tales from Shakespeare_. Charles Lamb was rather a short man, with a spare body and legs so small and thin that Thomas Hood once spoke of them as "immaterial legs." His head, however, was large, and his brow fine; his nose, large and hooked, was in a face which early showed lines of care and trouble; his eyes were large and expressive, twinkling with humor but full of piercing inquiry, and searching with keen interest everything about him; his mouth was large and firm, but around it there flitted a smile that showed the genial, humorous soul of the big-hearted boy. Lamb's habits were peculiar, there is no denying that, and his habits of dress made him even more noticeable. Almost always he wore a black coat, knickerbockers and black gaiters. The old-fashioned cut of his clothes and their worn appearance showed the narrowness of his means, which, however, never caused him to neglect either clothing or person, for he was remarkably neat in his ways. [Illustration: CHARLES LAMB 1775-1834] Although a poor boy, he was educated in the famous old Christ's Hospital School in London, but when he was ready for college he found himself barred by his stammering, stuttering tongue. Giving up his hope of further schooling, he was glad to take a small clerkship in a government office, where he remained for thirty-three years, a long period with little or no advancement. It was in 1792, when Charles was about seventeen years of age, that he was given his clerkship, and for nearly four years he lived happily, supporting his parents and his sister in their humble home. Mary was eleven years older than Charles, a quiet gentle creature whom everybody loved, though in some respects she was peculiar. There were things, too, that troubled the family and made them reserved and inclined to be oversensitive. Not only were they very poor, but there had been insanity on the mother's side, and Charles, himself, had at one time been in brief confinement for irrational actions. Mary, too, had occasionally shown signs of madness, but no one anticipated the dreadful event which took place in 1796.