ing it a rule, not only to chase them from his own door, but to consign them, if possible, to the wholesome coercion of the parish stocks, actually went the length of bestowing a comfortable meal, a night's shelter in an outhouse, and a bed of clean straw, on a soldier's widow, who was travelling, with her babe in her arms, towards the far distant home of its dead father.

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Dame Cleaves stared in strange perplexity, and said something about charity beginning at home," and "coming to want," and "harbouring idle husseys and their brats." But Andrew was peremptory, for his eye had glanced from the poor soldier's fatherless babe to the cherished creature at that time nestling in his own bosom. So the widow was 66 warmed and fed," and left a blessing on her benefactor, who, on his part, failed not to accompany his parting "God speed you," and the small piece of money which accompanied it, with an impressive lecture on the sinfulness of want and pauperism, and a comfortable assurance, that they were always deserved manifes tations of divine displeasure.

Just as the little Josiah had attained his second year, Andrew Cleaves was called on to resign the wife of his bosom, who went the way of all flesh, after a short but sharp illness. She had so fully realized all the calculations that had decided Andrew to choose her for his mate, that he regretted her loss very sincerely; but resignation, he justly observed, was the duty of a Christian, and Andrew was wonderfully resigned and composed, even in the early days of his bereavement, throwing out many edifying comments on the folly and sinfulness of immoderate grief, together with sundry apposite remarks, well befitting his own circumstances, and a few proverbial illustrations and observations, such as, "misfortunes never come alone, for his poor dame was taken at night, and the old gander was found dead in the morning." Moreover, he failed not to sum up, as sources of

rational consolation, "that it had pleased the Lord to spare her till the boy ran alone, and Daisey's calf was weaned, and all the bacon cured; and he himself had become fully competent to supply her place in the manufacturing of cheeses." So Andrew buried his wife, and was comforted.

And, from the night of her death, he took his little son to his own bed, and laid him in his mother's place; and long and fervent were the prayers he ejaculated before he went to rest, kneeling beside his sleeping child; and cautious and tender as a mother's kiss, was that he imprinted on its innocent brow before he turned himself to slumber. Early in the morning an elderly widow, who had been used to cook his victuals, and set the cottage to rights before his marriage, came to take up and tend the boy, and get breakfast for him and his father, and she was now detained through the day, in the care of household concerns, and of the motherless little one. She was a good and tender foster-mother, and a careful manager withal, falling readily into Andrew's ways and likings; a woman of few words, and content with little more than her victuals and drink—and (inoffensive and taciturn as she was) he had a feeling of snug satisfaction in locking her out every evening when she betook herself to sleep at her own cottage. Then was Andrew wont to turn back to his own solitary hearth, and a feeling of self gratulation, not evincing much taste for social enjoyment, or any disposition again to barter his secure state of single blessedness for a chance in the matrimo nial lottery-from which, having drawn a first-rate prize, it would have been presumptuous to expect a second.

What with old Jenny's help, and his own notability, (he had not lived so long a bachelor without having acquired some skill in housewifery), he got on very comfortably; and for a living object to care for, and to love, the little Josiah was to him

wife, child, companion-every thing! So Andrew continued faithful as a widowed turtle to the memory of his deceased Dinah; and the motherless boy throve as lustily as if he had continued to nestle under the maternal wing. He was, in truth, a fine sturdy little fellow, full of life and glee, and "quips and cranks, and mirthful smiles," and yet as like Andrew as 66 two peas. "The very moral of the father," said old Jenny, "only not so solemn like." He had Andrew's jetty eyebrows, and black lustrous eyes, deep set under the broad projecting brow; but they looked out with roguish mirth from their shadowy cells, and the raven hair, that, like his father's, almost touched his straight eyebrows, clung clustering over them, and round his little fat poll, in a luxuriance of rich, close, glossy curls. His mouth was shaped like his father's, too; but Andrew's could never, even in childhood, have relaxed into such an expression of dimpled mirth, as the joyous laugh burst out-that sound of infectious gladness, which rings to one's heart's core like a peal of merry bells. He was a fine little fellow! and, at five years old, the joy and pride of the doating father, not only for his vigorous beauty, but for his quick parts, and wonderful forwardness in learning; for Andrew was a scholar, and had early taken in hand his son's education; so that, at the age above mentioned, he could spell out passages in any printed book, could say the Lord's Prayer and the Belief, and great part of the Ten Commandments, though he stuck fast at the 39 Articles, and the Athanasian Creed, which his father had thought it expedient to include among his theological studies. It was the proudest day of Andrew Cleaves's whole life, when, for the first time, he held his little son by the hand up the aisle of his parish church, into his own pew, and lifted up the boy upon the seat beside him, where (so well had he been tutored, and so profound was his childish

awe,) he stood stock still, with his new red prayer-book held open in his two little chubby hands, and his eyes immoveably fixed, "not on the book, but" on his father's face. All eyes were fixed upon the boy, for, verily, a comical little figure did the young Josiah exhibit that Sabbathday. Andrew Cleaves had a sovereign contempt for petticoats, (though, of course, he had never hinted as much in his late spouse's hearing,) and could ill brook that his son and heir, a future lord of creation, should be ignominiously trammelled even in swaddling clothes. So soon, therefore, as a change was feasible-far sooner than old Jenny allowed it to be so-the boy was emancipated from his effeminate habiliments, and made a man of a little man complete, in coat, waistcoat, and breeches, made after the precise fashion of his father's, who had set the tailor to work in his own kitchen, under his own eye, and on a half-worn suit of his own clothes, out of which enough remained in excellent preservation, to furnish a complete equipment for the man in miniature. So little Josiah's Sunday-going suit consisted of a long-tailed coat of dark blue broadcloth, lapelled back with two rows of large gilt basket-work buttons; a red plush waistcoat, (the month being July), brown corduroy breeches with knee buckles, grey worsted hose, and large square-toed shoes, with a pair of heavy silver buckles, once belonging to his mother, that, covering his little feet quite across, like a couple of pack-saddles, touched the ground, as he walked, on either side of them. Add to this, a stiff broadbrimmed beaver, (padded within all round, to fit his tiny pate), under the shadow of which the baby-face was scarce discoverable, and the whole diminutive person moved like a walking mushroom.

Proud was the boy of his first appearance, so equipped, before the assembled congregation; and very proud was Andrew Cleaves, who felt as if now indeed he might assume

unto himself, before the elders of his people, the honour of being father to a man-child.

From that day forth little Josiah, led in his father's hand, came regularly to church every sabbath-day; but, alas! his after demeanour, during service, by no means realized the promise of that solemn propriety wherewith he comported himself, on his first memorable appearance; and it soon required Andrew's utmost vigilance to rebuke and check his son's restless and mischievous propensities. Great was the father's horror and consternation, on detecting him in the very act of making faces at the Vicar himself, whose unfortunate obliquity of vision had excited the boy's monkey talent of mimicry and, at last, the young rebel was suddenly and for ever deposed from his lofty station on the seat beside his father, for having taken a sly opportunity of pinning the hind bow of an old lady's bonnet to the back of her pew, whereby her bald pate was cruelly exposed to the eyes of the congregation, as she rose up, with unsuspecting innocence, at the Gloria Patri.

At home, too, Andrew soon discovered that his parental cares were likely to multiply in full proportion to his parental pleasures. Little Josiah was quick at learning, but of so volatile a spirit, that in the midst of one of his father's finest moral declamations, or most elaborate expoundings, he would dart off after a butterfly, or mount astride on the old sheep-dog; and at last, when sharply rebuked for his irreverent antics, look up piteously in his father's face, and yawn so disconsolately, that Andrew's iron jaws were fain to sympathize with the infectious grimace, to their owner's infinite annoyance. At meal times, it was well-nigh impossible to keep his little hands from the platter, while his father pronounced a long and comprehensive grace, with an especial supplication for the virtues of abstinence and forbearance; and so far from continuing to take pride in the manly dignity of

his raiment, it became necessary to dock his waistcoat flaps, and the long skirts of his week-day coat, the pockets of the former being invariably crammed with pebbles, munched apples, worms, brown-sugar, snails, cockchafers, and all manner of abominations; and on the latter, it was not only his laudable custom to squat himself in the mud and mire, but being of an imitative and inventive genius, and having somewhere read a history of the beavers, he forthwith began to practise their ingenious mode of land carriage, by dragging loads of rubbish behind him on the aforesaid coat-tails, as he slid along in a sitting posture.

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Greatly did Andrew Cleaves marvel that a son of his should evince such unseemly propensities, having perpetually before his eyes an example of sober seriousness and strict propriety. But, nevertheless, doated on the boy with unabated fondness-toiled for him-schemed for him-waked for him-dreamt of him-lived in him-idolized him!— Yes!-Andrew Cleaves, who had been wont to hold forth so powerfully on the sin and folly of idol worship, he set up in his heart an earthly image, and unconsciously exalted it above his Maker.

Andrew's cottage was situated on the extreme verge of a large and lonely common, which separated it from the village of Redburn, and it was also at a considerable distance from any other habitation. He had taken upon himself his son's early instruction, and it was consequently easy enough to maintain a point which he had much at heart, that of keeping the boy aloof from all intercourse with the village children, or indeed with any persons save himself and old Jenny, except in his company. This system, to which he rigidly adhered, had a very unfavourable effect on his own character, repressing in it all those kindlier and more social feelings, which had almost struggled into preponderance, when the hard surface was partially thawed, by the new sense of

parental tenderness, and while his son was yet a cradled babe, and he had nothing to apprehend for him on the score of evil communications. But now he guarded him, as misers guard their gold. As he himself, alas hoarded the Mammon of unrighteousness (his secondary object) but "solely for his darling's sake." So Andrew compromised the matter with his conscience; and so he would have answered to any inquiring Christian.

The boy, though thus debarred from all communication save with his father and old Jenny, was nevertheless as happy as any child of the same age. He had never known the pleasures of association with youthful playful playmates-he was full of animal spirits and invention, particularly in the science of mischiefhe completely ruled old Jenny in the absence of his father, and (except at lesson times, and on Sabbaths) had acquired more ascendancy over that stern father himself, that Andrew anyway suspected.

The interval between the boy's fourth and seventh year was, perhaps, the happiest in the whole lives of father and son; but that state of things could not continue. Andrew Cleaves had aspiring views for his young Josiah-and it had always been his intention to give him "the best of learning;" in furtherance of which purpose, he had looked about him almost from the hour of the boy's birth, for some respectable school wherein to place him, when his own stock of information became incompetent to the task of teaching. He had at last pitched upon a grammar school in the county town, about five miles from his own habitation, where the sons of respectable tradesmen and farmers were boarded, and taught upon moderate terms; though, to do Andrew justice, saving considerations were not paramount with him, when his son's welfare was concerned, and he was far more anxious to ascertain that his morals, as well as his learning, would be strictly attended to. On that head, he, of

course, received the most satisfactory assurances from the master of the "academy for young gentlemen," and having likewise ascertained that the boy would have an ample allowance of wholesome food, it is not wonderful that Andrew Cleaves threw the "moderate terms" as the third weight into the scale of determination.

The greater number of the boys, those whose parents were dwellers in the town of C—, were only day-boarders; but some, whose families lived at a greater distance, went home on Saturdays only, to spend the Sabbath-day; and it was Andrew's private solace, to think that the separation from his child would be rendered less painful by that weekly meeting. It had taken him full six months, and sundry journeyings to and fro, to make all his arrangements with the master. But at last they were completed, and nothing remained but the trial-the hard, hard trial-of parting with that creature who constituted his all of earthly happiness. Andrew was a hard man, little susceptible of tender weakness in his own nature, and ever prone to contemn and censure in others the indulgence of any feeling incompatible (in his opinion) with the dignity of a man, and the duty of a Christian.

His God was not a God of love; and when he rebuked the natural tears of the afflicted,-the submissive sorrows of the stricken heart,-it was in blind forgetfulness of him who wept over the grave of his friend Lazarus. He had honoured his parents during their lifetime, and buried them with all decent observance; but with no other outward demonstration of woe, than a more sombre shade on his always severe countenance. "The desire of his eyes" was taken from him, and he had shown himself a pattern of pious resignation. And now he was to part with his son for a season, and who could doubt that the temporary sacrifice would be made with stoical firmness? And so it should verily,