it would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them." Just as he spoke, there came a double knock at the house-door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up, more like a puff than a knock. "It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would venture to knock double knocks at our door." No; it wasn't the wind; there it came again very hard, and, what was particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry, and not to be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck went to the window, opened it, and put his head out to see who it was. It was the most extraordinary-looking little gentleman he had ever seen in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly brass-colored; his cheeks were very round and very red, and might have warranted a supposition that he had been blowing a refractory fire for the last eight-and-forty hours; his eyes twinkled merrily through long silky eyelashes, his mustaches curled twice round like a corkscrew on each side of his mouth, and his hair, of a curious mixed pepper-and-salt color, descended far over his shoulders. He was about four feet six in height, and wore a conical pointed cap of nearly the same altitude, decorated with a black feather some three feet long. His doublet was prolonged behind into something resembling a violent exaggeration of what is now termed a "swallow-tail," but was much obscured by the swelling folds of an enormous black, glossy-looking cloak, which must have been very much too long in calm weather, as the wind, whistling round the old house, carried it clear out from the wearer's shoulders to about four times his own length. Gluck was so perfectly paralyzed by the singular appearance of his visitor, that he remained fixed without uttering a word, until the old gentleman, having performed another and a more energetic concerto on the knocker, turned round to look after his fly-away cloak. In so doing he caught sight of Gluck's little yellow head jammed in the window, with its mouth and eyes very wide open indeed. "Hollo!" said the little gentleman, "that's not the way to answer the door; I'm wet, let me in." To do the little gentleman justice, he was wet. His feather hung down between his legs like a beaten puppy's tail, dripping like an umbrella; and from the ends of his mustaches the water was running into his waistcoat-pockets, and out again like a mill-stream. “I beg pardon, sir,” said Gluck, “I'm very sorry, but I really can't." "Can't what?" said the old gentleman. "I can't let you in, sir, I can't, indeed; my brothers would beat me to death, sir, if I thought of such a thing. What do you want, sir?" "Want?" said the old gentleman, petulantly, “I want fire and shelter; and there's your great fire there blazing, crackling, and dancing on the walls, with nobody to feel it. Let me in, I say; I only want to warm myself." Gluck had had his head, by this time, so long out of the window that he began to feel it was really unpleasantly cold, and when he turned, and saw the beautiful fire rustling and roaring, and throwing long bright tongues up the chimney, as if it were licking its chops at the savory smell of the leg of mutton, his heart melted within him that it should be burning away for nothing. "He does look very wet," said little Gluck; "I'll just let him in for a quarter of an hour." Round he went to the door, and opened it; and as the little gentleman walked in, through the house came a gust of wind that made the old chimneys totter. "That's a good boy," said the little gentleman. "Never mind your brothers. I'll talk to them." "Pray, sir, don't do any such thing," said Gluck. "I can't let you stay till they come; they'd be the death of me." "Dear me," said the old gentleman, "I'm very sorry to hear that. How long may I stay?" 66 Only till the mutton 's done, sir,” replied Gluck, "and it's very brown." · Then the old gentleman walked into the kitchen, and sat himself down on the hob, with the top of his cap accommodated up the chimney, for it was a great deal too high for the roof. said Gluck, and sat But the old gentle "You'll soon dry there, sir," down again to turn the mutton. man did not dry there, but went on drip, drip, dripping among the cinders, and the fire fizzed and sputtered, and began to look very black and uncomfortable; never was such a cloak; every fold in it ran like a gutter. "I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck at length, after watching the water spreading in long quicksilver-like streams over the floor for a quarter of an hour; "may n't I take your cloak?" "No, thank you," said the old gentleman. "Your сар, sir? "I'm all right, thank you," said the old gentleman, rather gruffly. "But-sir - I'm very sorry," said Gluck, hesitat ingly; “but—really, sir—you 're putting the fire out." Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom. In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still busy; 1395 Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun, And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. |