"Nay, nay, lad," said his uncle, "a great felly like thee should never skrike. Thy grandmother means nout. Mother, you're a bit hard upon th' lad; it isn't fair to force a child to be witness again' its own father." With this Uncle Jacob rose and left the room, for it was time for him to go to the mill; and then Mrs. Ogden rose from her chair, and with the stiff stately walk that was habitual to her, and that she never could lay aside even under strong emotion, approached her grandson, and, bending over him, gave him one kiss on the forehead. This kiss, be it observed, was a very exceptional event. Jacob always kissed his grandmother when he came to Milend; but she was invariably passive, though it was plain that the ceremony was agreeable to her, from a certain softness that spread over her features, and which differed from their habitual expression. So when Jacob felt the old lady's lips upon his forehead, a thrill of tenderness ran through his little heart, and he sobbed harder than ever. Mrs. Ogden drew a chair close to his, and, putting her hand on his brow so as to turn his face a little upwards that she might look well into it, said, "Come now, little un, tell granny all about it." What the kiss had begun, the word "granny" fully accomplished. Little Jacob dried his eyes and resolved to tell his sorrows. "Grandmother," he said, "father is so--so"-- "So _what_, my lad?" "Well, he beats me, grandmother!" Now Mrs. Ogden, though she loved Jacob as strongly as her nature permitted, by no means wished to see him entirely exempt from corporal punishment. She knew, on the authority of Scripture, that it was good for children to be beaten, that the rod was a salutary thing; and she at once concluded that little Jacob had been punished for some fault which in her own code would have deserved such punishment, and would have drawn it down upon her own sons when they were of his age. So she was neither astonished nor indignant, and asked, merely by way of continuing the conversation,-- "And when did he beat thee, child?" If Jacob had been an artful advocate of his own cause, he would have cited one of those instances unhappily too numerous during the last few months, when he had been severely punished on the slightest possible pretexts, or even without any pretext whatever; but as recent events occupy the largest space in our recollection, and as all troubles diminish by a sort of perspective according to the length of time that has happened since their occurrence, Jacob, of course, instanced a beating that he had received that very morning, and of which certain portions of his bodily frame, by their uncommon stiffness and soreness, still kept up the most lively remembrance. "He beat me this morning, grandmother." "And what for?" "Because I spilt some ink on my new trowsers that I'd put on to come to Milend."