uld persuade no man to live with him.
At night he was always secured to his bed, otherwise his keeper would
not have had courage to sleep, for he was as cunning as he was hideous.
When he slept during the day, which he did frequently after a meal, his
attendant contented himself with locking his door, and keeping his ears
awake. At such times only did he venture to look on the world: he would
step just outside the street-door, but would neither leave it, nor shut
it behind him, lest the savage should perhaps escape from his room, bar
it, and set the house on fire.

"One beautiful Sunday morning, the brute, after a good breakfast, had
fallen asleep on his bed, and the keeper had gone down stairs, and was
standing in the street with the door open behind him. All the people
were at church, and the street was empty as a desert. He stood there
for some time, enjoying the sweet air and the scent of the flowers,
went in and got a light to his pipe, put coals on the fire, saw that
the hugh cauldron of broth which the cook had left in his charge when
he went to church--it was to serve for dinner and supper both--was
boiling beautifully, went back, and again took his station in front of
the open door. Presently came a neighbour woman from her house, leading
by the hand a little girl too young to go to church. She stood talking
with him for some time.

"Suddenly she cried, 'Good Lord! what's come o' the bairn?' The same
instant came one piercing shriek--from some distance it seemed. The
mother darted down the neighbouring close. But the keeper saw that the
door behind him was shut, and was filled with horrible dismay. He
darted to an entrance in the close, of which he always kept the key
about him, and went straight to the kitchen. There by the fire stood
the savage, gazing with a fixed fishy eye of rapture at the cauldron,
which the steam, issuing in little sharp jets from under the lid,
showed to be boiling furiously, with grand prophecy of broth. Ghastly
horror in his very bones, the keeper lifted the lid--and there, beside
the beef, with the broth bubbling in waves over her, lay the child! The
demon had torn off her frock, and thrust her into the boiling liquid!

"There rose such an outcry that they were compelled to put him in
chains and carry him no one knew whither; but nurse said he lived to
old age. Ever since, the house has been uninhabited, with, of course,
the reputation of being haunted. If you happen to be in its