Here there was a pause of some duration; and I saw an anxious expression on the old man’s features, either as if he was somewhat startled with the task which he had undertaken, or did not quite know where to begin: probably both feelings were in his mind, for in about half a minute, he raised his eyes a little, which had been, till then, fixed on the ground, and said, as if half to me and half to himself, “I think it will be best to begin at the beginning. He will like to hear of my young days, and it is a pleasure to me to go over them again. I was not, sir, born in Manchester; indeed, I hardly ever knew any body that was! Many come from Ireland, like pigs, and they live like pigs; and many from the north, like woodcocks and fieldfares,—some grow fat like fieldfares, and some grow lean like woodcocks!” I now found that my new friend had some humour in his conversation; and I confess, I did not like him the worse for it. He continued:—“I am from the north. I was born in one of the wildest parts of the country you ever saw, in the midst of lakes and mountains. It has been fashionable lately to visit the lake country, but most persons go in their carriages or on horseback, and they miss the very finest parts and the grandest scenes. I did not think much of the beauties of the country then; but since I left it, and came to live in this smoky dungeon, my heart has often gone back to the place of my birth; and it now looks much more beautiful in my mind than it did then to my eyes, or than it probably would if I were ever to see it again.—I wonder if that will ever be!”—he here half whispered to himself—“Sir, the house in which I was born stood in one of the most retired parts of the lake country—a spot, I dare say, never visited at all by strangers. They call it _Yewdale_. The house (I see it now!) was low, and built of cobbles, but firm as a rock; one end, indeed, had fallen in, and was used as a hen-roost and cart-house, but the main part of the house was well slated with good brown flat stones, out of Coniston Old Man, and had two chimneys at the top as tall and round as a churn. The house stood on the side of the hill, just where the road makes a turn to run right down upon Coniston Water Head. There was a great broad plane tree at the end of it,”—“and a large thorn before the door,” interrupted I, “with the top of it cut into the shape of a cock.” “Exactly so!” exclaimed he, looking up into my face with much surprise, “why you have seen the very place!” “To be sure I have, and that the very last summer, when I was strolling about Yewdale and Tilberthwaite, the finest part of all the lake country.” “Eh, sir!” said he, his native dialect unconsciously returning with his early recollections,—“Eh, sir, and is it not a _bonny bit_?—and so the old cock is still crowing on the top of the old thorn!”