and the highly-coloured beast-book. But a walk with a real Man--why,
that was a treat in itself! We set off briskly, the Man in the middle. I
looked up at him and wondered whether I should ever live to smoke a big
pipe with that careless sort of majesty! But Charlotte, whose young mind
was not set on tobacco as a possible goal, made herself heard from the
other side.

"Now, then," she said, "tell us a story, please, won't you?"

The Man sighed heavily and looked about him. "I knew it," he groaned.
"I knew I should have to tell a story. Oh, why did I leave my pleasant
fireside? Well, I will tell you a story. Only let me think a minute."

So he thought a minute, and then he told us this story.

Long ago--might have been hundreds of years ago--in a cottage half-way
between this village and yonder shoulder with his wife and their little
son. Now the shepherd spent his days--and at certain times of the year
his nights too--up on the wide ocean-bosom of the Downs, with only the
sun and the stars and the sheep for company, and the friendly chattering
world of men and women far out of sight and hearing. But his little son,
when he wasn't helping his father, and often when he was as well, spent
much of his time buried in big volumes that he borrowed from the affable
gentry and interested parsons of the country round about. And his
parents were very fond of him, and rather proud of him too, though they
didn't let on in his hearing, so he was left to go his own way and read
as much as he liked; and instead of frequently getting a cuff on the
side of the head, as might very well have happened to him, he was
treated more or less as an equal by his parents, who sensibly thought
it a very fair division of labour that they should supply the practical
knowledge, and he the book-learning. They knew that book-learning often
came in useful at a pinch, in spite of what their neighbours said. What
the Boy chiefly dabbled in was natural history and fairy-tales, and he
just took them as they came, in a sandwichy sort of way, without making
any distinctions; and really his course of reading strikes one as rather
sensible.

One evening the shepherd, who for some nights past had been disturbed
and preoccupied, and off his usual mental balance, came home all of
a tremble, and, sitting down at the table where his wife and son
were peacefully employed, she with her seam, he in following out the
adventures of the Giant with no Heart in his Bod