now lighted up and beautified the
countenance which had so recently been distorted with passion. Uttering
some unintelligible phrase in Gaelic, she held out her skinny arms
towards the child, as if entreating him to come to her. Strange to say,
Jacky did not run away or scream with fright as she approached him and
took him in her arms. Whether it was that he was too much petrified
with horror to offer any resistance, or that he understood the smile of
affection and reciprocated it, we cannot tell; but certain it is that
Jacky suffered her to place him on her knee, stroke his hair, and press
him to her old breast, as unresistingly and silently as if she had been
his own mother, instead of a mad old woman.

Fred availed himself of this improved state of things to attempt again
to open an amicable conversation; but the old woman appeared to have
turned stone deaf; for she would neither look at nor reply to him. Her
whole attention was devoted to Jacky, into whose wondering ears she
poured a stream of Gaelic, without either waiting for, or apparently
expecting, a reply.

Suddenly, without a word of warning, she pushed Jacky away from her, and
began to wring her hands and moan as she bent over the fire. Mr
Sudberry seized the opportunity to decamp. He led Jacky quietly out of
the hut, and made for the White House at as rapid a pace as the darkness
of the night would allow. As they walked home, father and sons felt as
if they had recently held familiar converse with a ghost or an evil
spirit.

But that feeling passed away when they were all seated at tea in the
snug parlour, relating and listening to the adventure; and Jacky swelled
to double his size, figuratively, on finding himself invested with
sudden and singular importance as the darling of an "old witch." Soon,
however, matters of greater interest claimed the attention of Mr
Sudberry and his sons; for their bosoms were inflamed with a desire to
emulate the dexterous Hector Macdonald.

Rods and tackle were overhauled, and every preparation made for a
serious expedition on the morrow. That night Mr Sudberry dreamed of
fishing.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER 5.

SOME ACCOUNT OF A GREAT FISHING EXPEDITION.

There was an old barometer of the banjo type in the parlour of the White
House, which, whatever might have been its character for veracity in
former days, had now become such an inveterate story-teller, that it was
pretty safe to accept as true, exactly the r