oting with the baby in her arms, and
fallen down the stairs right across the house door. Our Rachel never
looked up arter that; she died of a broken heart. And Jim couldn't bear
to tarry in the neighbourhood; nor I neither. Ah, the misery, the
misery as springs from the cursed drink! Thank the Lord, Jacob, over
and over again a thousand times, as he's given you grace to be a total
abstainer."

There was a long pause, during which the old man wept silent but not
bitter tears.

"Them as is gone is safe in glory," he said at last; "our Rachel and her
babe, I mean; and I've done fretting now. I shall go to them; but they
will not return to me. And now, Jacob, my lad, what do ye say to
learning my trade, and taking shares with me? I shan't be good for much
again this many a day, and I've taken a fancy to you. You've done me a
good turn, and I know you're gradely. I'm not a queer chap, though I
looks like one. My clothes is only a whim of mine. They've been in the
family so long, that I cannot part with 'em. They'll serve out _my_
time, though we've patched and patched the old coat till there's scarce
a yard of the old stuff left in him, and he looks for all the world like
a _map_ of England, with the different counties marked on it."

"Well, Mayster Crow," began Jacob in reply; but the other stopped him by
putting up his hand.

"Eh, lad, you mustn't call me _Mayster_ Crow; leastwise, if you do afore
other folks, they'll scream all the wits out of you with laughing. I'm
`Old Crow' now, and nothing else. My real name's Jenkins; but if you or
any one else were to ask for Isaac Jenkins, there's not a soul in these
parts as'd know as such a man ever lived. No; they call me `Old Crow.'
Maybe 'cos I look summat like a scarecrow. But I cannot rightly tell.
It's my name, howsever, and you must call me nothing else."

"Well, then, Old Crow," said Jacob, "I cannot tell just what I'm going
to do. You see I've no friends, and yet I should have some if I could
only find 'em."

"Have you neither fayther nor mother living then?" asked the old man.

"I cannot say. My mother's dead. As for the rest--well, it's just this
way, Old Crow, I'm a close sort o' chap, and always were. I left home a
fugitive and a vagabond, and I resolved as I'd ne'er come back till I
could come as my own mayster, and that I'd ne'er tell anything about my
own home and them as belonged me, till I could settle where I pleased in
a home of my