t sleep on in spite of cocks, and the stables be cleaner,
and the beasts better tended than if he had been up with the lark. And
John Broom's curiosity was never quenched about the rough, hairy
Good-fellow who worked at night that others might be idle by day, and
who was sometimes caught at his hard earned nap, lying "like a great
hurgin bear," where the boy loved to lie himself, before the fire, on
this very hearth.

Why and where he had gone, Thomasina could not tell. She had heard that
he had originally come from some other household, where he had been
offended. But whether he had gone elsewhere when he forsook
Lingborough, or whether "such things had left the country" for good, she
did not pretend to say.

And when she had told, for the third or fourth time, how his porridge
was put into a corner of the cowhouse for him over night, and how he had
been often overheard at his work, but rarely seen, and then only lying
before the fire, Miss Betty would ring for prayers, and Thomasina would
fold up her knitting and lead the way, followed by Annie the lass, whose
nerves John Broom would startle by treading on her heels, the rear being
brought up by the cowherd, looking hopelessly at his boots.

Miss Betty and Miss Kitty did really deny themselves the indulgence of
being indulgent, and treated John Broom on principles, and for his good.
But they did so in their own tremulous and spasmodic way, and got little
credit for it. Thomasina, on the other hand, spoiled him with such a
masterful managing air, and so much sensible talk, that no one would
have thought that the only system she followed was to conceal his
misdemeanours, and to stand between him and the just wrath of the
farm-bailiff.

The farm-bailiff, or grieve, as he liked to call himself, was a
Scotchman, with a hard-featured face (which he washed on the Sabbath), a
harsh voice, a good heart rather deeper down in his body than is usual,
and a shrewd, money-getting head, with a speckled straw hat on the top
of it. No one could venture to imagine when that hat was new, or how
long ago it was that the farm-bailiff went to the expense of purchasing
those work-day clothes. But the dirt on his face and neck was an orderly
accumulation, such as gathers on walls, oil-paintings, and other places
to which soap is not habitually applied; it was not a matter of spills
and splashes, like the dirt John Broom disgraced himself with. And his
clothes, if old, fitted neatly about