A LEGENDARY TALE.

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dwarfed, and stunted, and distorted yew-tree, or oak pollard.

As the story went,—the lady, bound against her will to so unsightly a yoke-fellow, come of a stock also much inferior to her own, tossed the yoke altogether from off her fair proud neck, and, when Sir Timothy, who in a little casket carried a bold big jewel of a heart, was away on military service, showed favour to a handsome paramour. The little knight, who loved his lady, and was nothing prone to jealousy, was said to have stolen away from the English army, then engaged in border warfare, riding fast and far one summer's night and day that he might innocently surprise his lovely dame. On the eve of St. John he arrived at home, where his presence was of course something less welcome than he fondly believed. The lady, however (her first confusion past, and entirely overlooked), cheered the heart of her little lord with unwonted smiles. In lover-like guise she walked with him by the midsummer moonlight, beside the winding stream, overlooked, in those days, by the knight's stately halls, as in these by his stately tomb; and there, in the midst of her basilisk fascinations, gave him, with her own fair hands, a treacherous push into the water, from which, encumbered by his armour, he never rose. None but the cruel lady, her paramour, and a single page, intimidated for a time to silence, ever knew of Sir Timothy's stolen, ill-starred visit to his home; Rumour, with her thousand tongues, assigning as many false causes for his

sudden disappearance. His widow, whose lover was soon afterwards killed at Flodden, mocked the memory of her hapless spouse by numerous masses and a stately tomb, to which ber own name and effigy were afterwards appended.-So went the tale.

Though generally neglected by day and avoided by night, there was one inhabitant of our village by whom the old church, churchyard, and, above all, the Tomkins' tomb, were once regarded with a reverence and love which cast out fear. This was an old man named also Tomkins, then sexton of the parish, and cicerone to the parish church, which, on account of its high antiquity, was now and then visited by persons of antiquarian taste from an adjacent watering-place.

Old Tomkins remembered the church in all the integrity of its ancient body,—remembered the Tomkins' monument standing under the canopy of a fretted roof, when (as the very gem of his sepulchral cabinet) he used to exhibit it to strangers, and relate its gloomy legend, embellished by himself, and all with a pride in nowise lessened by the coincidence of his own family name with that of the murdered knight; and it was, perhaps, chiefly to encourage and keep up the notion that he was descended from the same stock, that he was proud also to borrow the christian appellation of Sir Timothy for the first little grandson (also godson) who came into the world to receive it.

But somehow or another, the ill-fated little knight's name seemed to carry with it its fatality. Father, or mother, the little

Timothy never knew, having lost both while in his cradle; wherewith he was transferred to the roof of his grandfather, the sexton. Partly, perhaps, as the inheritance of a consumptive mother, partly from the bad nursing of an ill-paid hireling, the boy soon showed symptoms of a weakly constitution, followed by deformity and stunted growth,-afflictions, especially the latter, whereby he acquired one point of personal and increasing resemblance to his knightly namesake, and with it also a fresh hold, not only on the love, but even on the pride of his grandfather.

So long as the old man lived, the orphan never felt the want of a mother's love or a father's protection. He, the little Tim, and the great monument of Sir Timothy, were the two things on earth to which the old sexton's heart most fondly clung. The decaying tomb which it was his pride to keep clear of moss and weeds, and the sickly child whose fragile life was hardly supported by his care, seemed in his mind to be more closely connected than by name. All the orphan knew he had learnt from his grandfather, who, playing the schoolmaster after his own fashion, had taught him first his letters, then his lessons, from the tombstones; and rewarded his diligence by telling him, as they sat together in the churchyard in summer, or over their scanty fire in winter, tales of wonder, all gathered from the graves; at the head of which, and engraven by repetition, there always stood foremost the legendary story of Sir Timothy and his wicked lady.

No wonder, with such teaching and with such almost sole companionship, that as years went on and the aged man sank down towards second childhood, the sickly, decrepit child seemed to grow up (though he grew but little) into old age. In countenance, in step, in speech, he was never young; he was as unable as unwilling to join the sturdy villagers in their joyous sports; and when, on rare occasions, he chanced to come among them, although he was as gentle and harmless a creature as ever drew breath, the timid of the crew would keep aloof and eye him with distrustful looks, while the bold and bad jeered at his deformity, and gave him the nick-names of "My Lord" and "Tombstone Tim."

All

When about fifteen, Tim lost his grandfather, his only friend. The office he had performed for so many, another did for him; the lowly bed of the late sexton being made, by his own particular desire, between that of his son and daughter (the orphan's parents) and the grand old monument which had been the pride of his life,—at all events, of his latter years. through the progress of his gradual decline and last illness, poor Timothy had been the sole and tender nurse of him who, through the previous course of his own feeble, blighted days, had been his only supporter; and the thin, weak, effeminate hands, unfit for the mattock and the plough, were well suited to prop the head and smooth the pillow of declining age.

For the last fourteen years,—from the period nearly when his orphan grandson had been thrown upon his charge, old Tom

THE SEXTON'S COFFER.

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kins had been in the habit of consigning to a little box all the odd shillings and sixpences given him from time to time by strangers to whom he had shown the church and monuments; and though of late hardly pinched, nothing would tempt him to take a penny from this little hoard, which he had set aside as the orphan's portion.

The casket in which the good sexton kept this precious treasure was suitable to his calling, as well as to the means by which it had been got together. It was a small oaken box made out of the fragments of an old coffin, and rudely carved in imitation of his favourite Tomkins' Tomb. An hour or two before he died, he put this box, with its contents, amounting then to eleven pounds three shillings and sixpence, into Tim's hand; and gave him, with his last blessing, a charge (though this was little needed) to keep in decent order three humble graves, those of his young parents, with that of their old father so soon to be dug beside them; and, above all, never to neglect the ancient monument of his namesake, Sir Timothy Tomkins.

Though the orphan boy felt, desolately, that with his last relation and friend he had lost the only home of his solitary heart, he still continued to abide beneath the roof under which he and his grandfather had, as lodgers, occupied a room for many years. The old woman whose miserable cottage they had shared was still glad enough to receive from the boy the weekly stipend so long paid by his grandfather, with an addition for