"Your lordship knows that I goes there for nothing except to keep up my

burial. And with all the work there is upon this place, the Lord only

knows when I may be requiring of it. Ah! I never see the like; I never

did. And a blade of grass the wrong way comes down on poor old Swipes!"

Hereupon the master, having done his duty, was relieved from overdoing

it, and went on other business with a peaceful mind. The feelings,

however, of Mr. Swipes were not to be appeased so lightly, but demanded

the immediate satisfaction of a pint of beer. And so large was his

charity that if his master fell short of duty upon that point, he

accredited him with the good intention, and enabled him to discharge it.

"My dear soul," he said, with symptoms of exhaustion, to good Mrs.

Cloam, the housekeeper, who had all the keys at her girdle, about ten

o'clock on the Monday morning, "what a day we did have yesterday!"

"A mercy upon me, Mr. Swipes," cried Mrs. Cloam, who was also short of

breath, "how you did exaggerate my poor narves, a-rushing up so soft,

with the cold steel in both your hands!"

"Ah! ma'am, it have right to be a good deal wuss than that," the

chivalrous Swipes made answer, with the scythe beside his ear. "It don't

consarn what the masters say, though enough to take one's legs off. But

the ladies, Mrs. Cloam, the ladies--it's them as takes our heads off."

"Go 'long with you, Mr. Swipes! You are so disastrous at turning things.

And how much did he say you was to have this time? Here's Jenny Shanks

coming up the passage."

"Well, he left it to myself; he have that confidence in me. And little

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