ared, each
of which would have made a decent body of itself, and went whirling
across the street till the whole monstrosity came violently into
collision with the walls of the house opposite, which seemed to rock to
its very foundations under the assault.

A decent serving-man, in a semi-doctorial livery of black cloth, with a
large white collar laid far over his shoulders, and cuffs of the same
upon his wrists, stood in the open doorway and smiled apologetically at
the visitor. He was rather red in the face and panted with his exertions.

"I ask your pardon, young sir," he said. "That fool, Jan Lubber Fiend,
will ever be at his tricks. 'Tis my young mistress that encourages him,
more is the pity! For poor serving-men are held responsible for his
knavish on-goings. Why, I had just set him cross-legged in the yard with
a basket of pease to shell, seeing how he grows as much as a foot in the
night--or near by. But so soon as my back is turned he will be forever
answering the door and peeping out into the street to gather the mongrel
boys about him. 'Tis a most foul Lubber Fiend to keep about an honest
house, plaguing decent folks withal!"

By this time the great oaf had come back to the door of the house, and
now stood alternately rubbing his elbow and rear, with an expression
ludicrously penitent, at once puzzled and kindly.

"Ah, come in with you, will you?" said the man. "Certes, were it not for
Mistress Ysolinde, I would set on the little imps of the street to nip
you to pieces and eat you raw."

The angry serving-man held the door as wide as possible and stood aside,
whereat the Lubber Fiend tucked his head so far down that it seemed to
disappear into the cavity of his chest, and scurried along the passage
bent almost double. As he passed the door he drew all the latter part of
his body together, exactly like a dog that fears a kick in the by-going.
The respectable man-servant stirred not a muscle, but the gesture told a
tale of the discipline of the house by the White Gate at times when
visitors were not being admitted by the main door, and when Mistress
Ysolinde, favorer of the Fool Lubber Fiend, was not so closely at hand.

It was a grand house, too, the finest I had ever seen, with hangings of
arras everywhere, many and parti-colored--red hunters who hunted, green
foresters who shot, puff-cheeked boys blowing on hunting-horns; a house
with mysterious vistas, glimpses into dim-lit rooms, wafts of perfume,
la