New York
Dodd Mead & Company
1886
CONTENTS.
LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. By Juliana H.Ewing
MR. JOSIAH SMITH'S BALLOON JOURNEY. from Belgravia.
NUMBER 7639. by Mary Frances Peard.
GONERIL. by A. Mary F. Robinson.
OUT OF THE SEASON. from Temple Bar
INTRODUCTORY.
Lob Lie-By-The-Fire—the Lubber-fiend, as Milton calls him—is a roughkind of Brownie or House Elf, supposed to haunt some north-countryhomesteads, where he does the work of the farm labourers, for no granderwages than
"------to earn his cream bowl duly set."
Not that he is insensible of the pleasures of rest, for
"—When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end,
Then lies him down the Lubber-fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength."
It was said that a Lob Lie-by-the-fire once haunted the little old Hallat Lingborough. It was an old stone house on the Borders, and seemed tohave got its tints from the grey skies that hung above it. It wascold-looking without, but cosy within, "like a north-country heart,"said Miss Kitty, who was a woman of sentiment, and kept a commonplacebook.
It was long before Miss Kitty's time that Lob Lie-by-the-fire first cameto Lingborough. Why and whence he came is not recorded, nor when andwherefore he withdrew his valuable help, which, as wages rose, andprices rose also, would have been more welcome than ever.
This tale professes not to record more of him than comes within thememory of man.
Whether (as Fletcher says) he were the son of a witch, if curds andcream won his heart, and new clothes put an end to his labours, it doesnot pretend to tell. His history is less known than that of any othersprite. It may be embodied in some oral tradition that shall one day befound; but as yet the mists of forgetfulness hide it from thestoryteller of to-day as deeply as the sea fogs are wont to lie betweenLingborough and the adjacent coast.
THE LITTLE OLD LADIES.—ALMS DONE IN SECRET.
The little old ladies of Lingborough were heiresses.
Not, mind you, in the sense of being the children of some mushroommillionnaire, with more money than manners, and (as Miss Betty had seenwith her own eyes, on the daughter of a manufacturer who shall benameless) dresses so fine in quality and be-furbelowed in con