“Indeed it _was_,” said I; “but as I passed by, I saw a ladder reared up to its side, and a decent looking man, apparently the owner, diligently employed, with a pair of shears, in cutting off the cock’s tail!” “Confound Tom Hebblethwaite,” said my companion, more seriously vexed than I thought it possible for him to be,—“I wish—but I am a fool for being angry with him—what better could be expected from him? At school he was always a stupid fellow; he never could catch a trout out of the lake in his life, and whenever he tried to rob a hen-roost, he was sure to tumble down the ladder, and waken all the cocks and hens in the parish!” I was much amused at the reasons which the old man assigned why nothing good could be expected from Tom Hebblethwaite, but said nothing more to provoke his indignation, which I saw he soon became rather ashamed of. After a pause he regained his wonted composure, and proceeded:—“In that house I was born. My earliest recollection is the death of my grandmother. I do not know how old she was, but she must have been near a hundred years old. I yet remember her calling me to her bed side, just before her death, giving me a shilling, which she seemed to have concealed somewhere about the bed-clothes, and saying, in a deep and earnest tone, ‘God bless you.’ She died that night. I have never forgotten her blessing, and I have never parted with her shilling—I never will!” There was a tear in his eye as he said this, and he paused for a few moments in his narrative. CHAPTER II. “Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber; Than in the perfum’d chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lull’d with sounds of sweetest melody!” SHAKSPERE.