ouches the farmhouse on the top of the
eminence!

_II.--Hannah Bint_

The shaw leading to Hannah Bint's habitation is a very pretty mixture of
wood and coppice. A sudden turn brings us to the boundary of the shaw,
and there, across the open space, the white cottage of the keeper peeps
from the opposite coppice; and the vine-covered dwelling of Hannah Bint
rises from amidst the pretty garden, which lies bathed in the sunshine
around it.

My friend Hannah Bint is by no means an ordinary person. Her father,
Jack Bint (for in all his life he never arrived at the dignity of being
called John), was a drover of high repute in his profession. No man
between Salisbury Plain and Smithfield was thought to conduct a flock of
sheep so skilfully through all the difficulties of lanes and commons,
streets and high-roads, as Jack Bint, aided by Jack Bint's famous dog,
Watch.

No man had a more thorough knowledge of the proper night stations, where
good feed might be procured for his charge, and good liquor for Watch
and himself; Watch, like other sheepdogs, being accustomed to live
chiefly on bread and beer, while his master preferred gin.

But when a rheumatic fever came one hard winter, and finally settled in
Jack Bint's limbs, reducing the most active and handy man in the parish
to the state of a confirmed cripple, poor Jack, a thoughtless but kind
creature, looked at his three motherless children with acute misery.
Then it was that he found help where he least expected it--in the sense
and spirit of his young daughter, a girl of twelve years old.

Hannah was a quick, clever lass of a high spirit, a firm temper, some
pride, and a horror of accepting parochial relief--that surest safeguard
to the sturdy independence of the English character. So when her father
talked of giving up their comfortable cottage and removing to the
workhouse, while she and her brothers must move to service, Hannah
formed a bold resolution, and proceeded to act at once on her own plans
and designs.

She knew that the employer in whose service her father's health had
suffered so severely was a rich and liberal cattle-dealer in the
neighbourhood, who would willingly aid an old and faithful servant. Of
Farmer Oakley, accordingly, she asked, not money, but something much
more in his own way--a cow! And, amused and interested by the child's
earnestness, the wealthy yeoman gave her a very fine young Alderney.

She then went to the lord of the manor, a