sometimes a body may fail, but then 'tis always
from people's obstinacy and ignorance. I dare
say, sir, you've heard the story of Farmer
Colly's mare, how she bled herself to death;
and they say he puts the blame on me. But
what's the true case? His man came rapping
at my door after I was in bed: I got up and
opened the casement and looked out, and I
asked what was amiss? ' O, Tony,' says he,
' master's mare is blooding streams, and I be
sent over to you to beg you'll stop it.' ' Very
well,' I said, ' I can do it just as well here as if
I came down and opened the door: only just
tell me the name of the beast, and I'll proceed.'
' Name,' says he, ' why, there's no name that I
know by, we allus call her the black mare!'
' No name?' says I, ' then however can I charm
her? Why, the name's the principal thing!
Fools! never to give her a name to rule the
charm by! Be off! be off! I can't save her.'
So the poor old thing died in course." " And
what may your charm be, Tony," said I. " Just
one verse in Ezekiel, sir, beginning, ' I said to
thee when thou wast in thy blood live.' And
so on. I say it only twice with an outblow
between each time. But the finest by-word
that I know, sir, is for the prick of a thorn."
And here it follows from my diary in the
antique phraseology which Uncle Tony had
received from his forefathers through descending
generations:

          Happy man that Christ was born!
           He was crownëd with a thorn:
           He was pierced through the skin,
           For to let the poison in:
           But his five wounds, so they say,
           Closed, before he passed away,
           In with healing, out with thorn:
           Happy man that Christ was born!

Another time, Uncle Tony said to me, " Sir,
there is one thing I want to ask you, if I may
be so free, and it is this: why should a merrymaid"
(the local name for mermaid), "that will
ride about upon the waters in such terrible
storms, and toss from sea to sea in such ruckles
as there be upon the coast, why should she
never lose her looking-glass and comb?" " Well,
I suppose," said I, " that if there are such creatures,
Tony, they must wear their looking-glasses
and combs fastened on somehow—like
fins to a fish." " See!" said Tony, chuckling
with delight, "what a thing it is to know the
Scriptures like your reverence; I never should
have found it out. But there's another point,
sir, I should like to know, if you please; I've
been bothered about it in my mind hundreds of
times. Here be I, that have gone up and down
Holacombe cliffs and streams fifty years come
next Candlemas, and I've gone and watched
the water by moonlight and sunlight, days and
nights, on purpose, in rough weather and smooth
(even Sundays, too, saving your presence), and
my sight as good as most men's, and yet I never
could come to see a merrymaid in all my life!
How's that, sir?" "Are you sure, Tony," I
rejoined, " that there are such things in existence
at all?" " Oh, sir, my old father seen her
twice! He was out once by night for wreck
(my father watched the coast like most of the
old people formerly), and it came to pass that
he was down by the duck pool on the sand at
low-water tide, and all to once he heard music
in the sea. Well, he croped on behind a rock,
like a coastguard-man watching a boat, and got
very near the noise. He couldn't make out the
words, but the sound was exactly like Bill
Martin's voice, that singed second counter in
church; at last he got very near, and there was
the merrymaid very plain to be seen, swimming
about upon the waves like a woman bathing—
and singing away. But my father said it was
very sad and solemn to hear—more like the tune
of a funeral hymn than a Christmas carol by far
—but it was so sweet that it was as much as he
could do to hold back from plunging into the tide
after her. And he an old man of sixty-seven,
with a wife and a houseful of children at home.
The second time was down here by Holacombe
Pits. He had been looking out for spars; there
was a ship breaking up in the Channel, and he
saw some one move just at half-tide mark. So
he went on very softly, step and step, till he got
nigh the place, and there was the merrymaid
sitting on a rock, the bootifullest merrymaid
that eye could behold, and she was twisting
about her long hair, and dressing it just like
one of our girls getting ready for her sweetheart
on the Sabbath-day. The old man made sure he
should greep hold of her before ever she found
him out, and he had got so near, that a couple
of paces more and he would have caught her by
the hair as sure as tithe or tax, when, lo and
behold, she looked back and glimpsed him! So
in one moment she dived head-foremost off the
rock, and then tumbled herself topsy-turvy about
in the waters, and cast a look at my poor father,
and grinned like a seal!"

NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS.
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
"Pickwick," "Copperfleld," &c.
Now publishing, PART XII., price 1s., of
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.