receded,
and twice again advanced, and finally drew out, daubed, painted, and
tricked forth in the semblance of a griffin, a gigantic kite.

The children, alas! were not old and wise enough to knew all the dormant
value of that imprisoned aeronaut, which had cost Caleb many a dull
evening's labour--the intended gift to the false one's favourite
brother. But they guessed that it was a thing or spirit appertaining of
right to them; and they resolved, after mature consultation, to impart
the secret of their discovery to an old wooden-legged villager, who had
served in the army, who was the idol of all the children of the place,
and who, they firmly believed, knew everything under the sun, except the
mystical arts of reading and writing. Accordingly, having seen that the
coast was clear--for they considered their parents (as the children of
the hard-working often do) the natural foes to amusement--they carried
the monster into an old outhouse, and ran to the veteran to beg him to
come up slyly and inspect its properties.

Three months after this memorable event, arrived the new pastor--a slim,
prim, orderly, and starch young man, framed by nature and trained by
practice to bear a great deal of solitude and starving. Two loving
couples had waited to be married till his Reverence should arrive.
The ceremony performed, where was the registry-book? The vestry was
searched-the church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the
demise of his deaf predecessor, had come into office a little before
Caleb's last illness, had a dim recollection of having taken the
registry up to Mr. Price at the time the vestry-room was whitewashed.
The house was searched-the cupboard, the mysterious cupboard, was
explored. "Here it is, sir!" cried the clerk; and he pounced upon a
pale parchment volume. The thin clergyman opened it, and recoiled in
dismay--more than three-fourths of the leaves had been torn out.

"It is the moths, sir," said the gardener's wife, who had not yet
removed from the house.

The clergyman looked round; one of the children was trembling. "What
have you done to this book, little one?"

"That book?--the--hi!--hi!--"

"Speak the truth, and you sha'n't be punished."

"I did not know it was any harm--hi!--hi!--"

"Well, and--"

"And old Ben helped us."

"Well?"

"And--and--and--hi!--hi!--The tail of the kite, sir!--"

"Where is the kite?"

Alas! the kite and its tail were long ago gone to that undiscovered