The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales from Many Sources, by Various

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Title: Tales from Many Sources
Vol. V

Author: Various

Release Date: August 2, 2005 [EBook #16415]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FROM MANY SOURCES ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Graeme Mackreth and the
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Tales

From Many Sources

Vol. V.

New York

Dodd Mead & Company

1886

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE. BY JULIANA H. EWING. 1

WILD JACK. FROM TEMPLE BAR. 87

VIRGINIA. BY MRS. FORRESTER. 145

MR. JOSIAH SMITH'S BALLOON VOYAGE. FROM BELGRAVIA. 172

NUMBER 7639. BY MARY FRANCES PEARD. 137

GONERIL. BY A. MARY F. ROBINSON. 239

OUT OF SEASON. FROM TEMPLE BAR. 266

LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE

INTRODUCTORY.

Lob Lie-By-The-Fire--the Lubber-fiend, as Milton calls him--is a rough
kind of Brownie or House Elf, supposed to haunt some north-country
homesteads, where he does the work of the farm labourers, for no grander
wages 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 Hall
at Lingborough. It was an old stone house on the Borders, and seemed to
have got its tints from the grey skies that hung above it. It was
cold-looking without, but cosy within, "like a north-country heart,"
said Miss Kitty, who was a woman of sentiment, and kept a commonplace
book.

It was long before Miss Kitty's time that Lob Lie-by-the-fire first came
to Lingborough. Why and whence he came is not recorded, nor when and
wherefore he w