At one time he took long walks or rides, and coming in after dark to dinner, would spend the evening in “logging” (as he called it) all that he had seen or heard. But when I knew him he was getting old, and the rambles were growing shorter: it was not often that he was seen beyond the village. He would go up to the village shop of afternoons, where a chair was always set for him, and talk to the people as they came in on various errands. But his old friends died off one by one: he followed them to the churchyard, and would stand with bare head there, listening to the Vicar reading the prayers, while Dr. and Mrs. Jackson looked down on the scene from the tower as usual. And really it seemed as if they would soon be the only old friends left to him. For the greater part of the year they were his companions most of the day: they became a part of his life, and we called them his familiar spirits. When he woke in the morning he could see them as he lay in bed, and sometimes they would come to his window if he had put out a breakfast for them overnight. But as a rule they took their own breakfast in the fields with the rooks and starlings and peewits, while he was dressing; and when, after his own breakfast, he took his walk up and down the garden path, they were to be seen perched on their gurgoyles, preening their feathers, chatting, and turning their wise old heads round and round in great ease of body and contentment of mind. In the early spring, after a bath in the large flat earthenware pan, which was daily filled for them by the housekeeper, they would turn their attention to a heap of odds and ends laid out for them in a corner of the garden: bits of string, old shoe-laces, shreds of all sorts,—everything that was wanted for nothing else went into the Doctor’s “library,” as the old Scholar called it, in which he and his wife conducted their researches. Nor could our dear old friend always refrain from adding some special treasure to the heap: he is known to have cut off one button after another from his coat, because they had a gleam upon them that he thought would please, and fragments of his old neckties were found in the tower when the long companionship had at last come to an end. It was only after the nesting season that for a time he missed them, when they took their young family out into the world, and introduced them to the society of which we may hope they have since become ornaments; and this absence the old Scholar took in very good part, being confident that he should see them again in August at latest. Besides, at the end of June I myself came home to the village: and though I could not hope to rival them in his esteem or respect, I might make shift to fill the gap till they returned. When I went to see him he would take my hand with all kindness, and invariably point to the vacant church tower. “I am glad to see you, my lad: Dr. and Mrs. Jackson have gone for a few days into the country with the children, but they will be