Every autumn Burbidge and his workers bring wheelbarrow loads of leaf mould and decayed lawn grass, and spread them over my "bulb forest;" and the result is that every year the flower roots strengthen, and the blossoms multiply. Bess ran from group to group, until her hands were full of different daffodils. "There's luck here," she cried, "and see, they glitter like gold money, mamsie--that must mean something good." We walked, laden with our gifts, till we reached the Bull Ring. We paused at the door of an old black and white house, with a broad pebble causeway before it. On entering the cottage we found Thady in bed. "Well, Thady, how did it happen?" I said. "I was after a rook's nest," replied Thady, "and the twig gave way entirely, and so I came down dang-swang, as the folks say here." "Indade," said his mother, Mrs. Malone, "it's afflicted I am in Thady. When he's good he's ill, and when he's well he keeps company entirely with the Devil." "Never fear, mother, whativer. 'Tis a bad boy as can't get good some day," and Thady, for all his face looked white and worn from pain, he burst into an irresistible fit of laughter. Upon this Bess showered upon him yellow daffodils, and I opened my basket containing the plum-pudding, and Bess's sky-blue egg, and an orange or two. "Sure and God bless you," said the good dame, his mother, with enthusiasm. "They will please him finely, for Wenlock is as dull as ditch water, for all they boast that in days gone by once there was gay goings on here. Bull and dog baitings, according to our old neighbour Timothy Theobalds' tales, and behind the Vicarage, cock matches fit for a king, and pretty fights between the young men behind the church. But, whatever there was then, 'tis still now, and sleepy as Time." [Sidenote: MASTER THEOBALDS ON POLITICS]