again. But I will do it yet. If the little thing had a soul, now, I fear that it would never be saved; for, “faith without works is vain." But I have faith in it, though it has deceived me oft. My quaint old monitor! How often has it warned me, that when man goes 66 on tick," it always ends in a kind of "Tic douloureux." But the hour approaches, when its tiny pulse and mine must both stand still; for— Owd Time, he's a troublesome codger,-- An' whispers, you're nobbut a lodger; And when "life's fitful fever" is past, I hope they will not sell my body to the doctors; nor my watch to anybody; but bury us together; and let us rest when they have done so. T the western edge of that quiet tract of Lancashire, called "The Fylde," lying between Wyre, Ribble, and the Irish Channel, the little wind-swept hamlet of Norbreck stands, half asleep, on the brow of a green ridge overlooking the sea. The windows of a whitewashed cottage wink over their garden wall, as the traveller comes up the slope, between tall hedgerows; and very likely he will find all so still, that, but for wild birds that crowd the air with music, he could hear his footsteps ring on the road as clearly as if he were walking on the flags of a gentleman's greenhouse. In summer, when its buildings are glittering in their annual suit of new whitewash, and when all the country round looks green and glad, it is a pleasant spot to set eyes upon—this quiet hamlet overlooking the sea. At that time of year it smells of roses, and of "cribs where oxen lie;" and the little place is so steeped in murmurs of the ocean, that its natural dreaminess seems deepened thereby. I cannot find that any great barons of the old time, or that any world-shaking people have lived there; or that any events which startle a nation have ever happened on that ground; but the tranquil charm that fills the air repays for the absence of historic fame. There is seldom much stir in Norbreck, except such as the elements make. The inhabitants would think the place busy 66 Papa, are It is with a dozen people upon its grass-grown road at once, whatever the season might be. It is true that on a fine day in summer I have now and then seen a little life just at the entrance of the hamlet. There, stands a pretty cottage, of one story, consisting of six cosy rooms, that run lengthwise; its white walls adorned with rose trees and fruit trees, and its windows bordered with green trellis work. Two trim grass-plots, with narrow beds of flowers, and neat walks, mosaically-paved with blue and white pebbles from the sea, fill up the front garden, which a low white wall and a little green gate enclose from the road. In front of this cottage, I have sometimes seen a troop of rosy children playing round a pale girl, who was hopelessly infirm, and, perhaps on that account, the darling of the whole household. I have seen her rocking in the sun, and, with patient melancholy, watching their gambols, whilst they strove to please her with all kinds of little artless attentions. Poor Lucy! Sometimes, after swaying to and fro thoughtfully in her chair, she would stop and ask questions that sent her father out of the room to wipe his eyes. "Papa, are people lame in heaven?” angels poorly sometimes, like we are here?" one of those beautiful compensations that mingle with the mishaps of life, that such a calamity has often the sweet effect of keeping kind hearts continually kind. The poor Lancashire widow, when asked why she seemed to fret more for the loss of her helpless lad than for any of her other children, said she couldn't tell, except "it were becose hoo'd had to nurse him moor nor o' tother put together." Surely, "there is a soul of good in all things evil." About this pretty cottage, where little Lucy lived, is the busiest part of the hamlet in summer time. There may chance to be two or three visitors sauntering in the sunshine; or, perhaps, old Thomas Smith, better known as "Owd England," the sea-beaten patriarch of Norbreck, may paddle across the road to look after his cattle, or, staff in hand, may be going down to "low water" a-shrimping, with his thin hair playing in the breeze. Perhaps Lizzy, the milkmaid, may run from the house to the shippon, with her skirt tucked up, and the neb of an old bonnet pulled down to shade her eyes; or Tom, the cow lad, may be leaning against a sunny wall, whistling, and mending his whip, and wondering how long it wants to dinner-time. There may be a fine cat dozing on the garden wall, or gliding stealthily towards the outhouses These are the common features of life there. For the rest, the sounds heard are mostly the cackle of poultry, the clatter of milk cans, the occasional bark of a dog, the distant lowing of kine, a snatch of country song floating from the fields, the wild birds' "tipsy routs of lyric joy," and that all-embracing murmur of the surge which fills one's ears wherever we go. In Norbreck everything smacks of the sea. On the grassy border of the road, about the middle of the hamlet, there is generally a pile of wreck waiting the periodical sale which takes place all along the coast. I have sometimes looked at this pile, and thought that perhaps to this or that spar some seaman might have clung with desperate energy among the hungry waters, until he sank, overpowered, into his uncrowded grave. The walls of gardens and farmyards are mostly built of cobles from the beach, sometimes fantastically laid in patterns of different hues. The garden beds are edged with shells, and the walks laid with blue and white pebbles. Here and there are rockeries of curiously-shaped stones from the shore. Every house has its little store of marine rarities, which meet the eye on cornices and shelves wherever we turn. Now and then we meet with a dead sea-mew on the road, and noisy flocks of gulls make fitful excursions landward; particularly in ploughing time, when they crowd after the plough to pick slugs and worms out of the new furrows. With a single exception, all the half-dozen dwellings in Norbreck are on one side of the road, with their backs to the north. On the other side there are gardens, and a few whitewashed outhouses, with weather beaten walls. The main body of the hamlet consists of a great irregular range of buildings, formerly the residence of a wealthy family. This pile is now divided into several dwellings, in some of which are snug retreats for such as prefer the seclusion of this sea-nest to the bustle of a crowded watering place. A little enclosed lawn, belonging to the endmost of the group, and then a broad field, divides this main cluster from the only other habitation. The latter seems to stand off a little, as if it had more pretensions to gentility than the rest. It is a picturesque house, of different heights, built at different times. At the landward end, a spacious yard, with great wooden doors close to the road, contains the outbuildings, with an old-fashioned weather-vane on the top of them. The lowmost part of the dwelling is a combination of neat cottages of one story; the highest part is a substantial brick edifice of two stories, with attics. This portion has great bow windows, which sweep the sea view, from the coast of Wales, round by the Isle of Man, to the mountains of Cumberland. In summer, the white walls of the cottage part are covered with roses and creeping plants, and there is an air of order and tasteful rusticity about the whole; even to the neat coble pavement which borders the wayside. On the top of the porch a stately peacock sometimes struts, like a feathered showman, whilst his mate paces to and fro, cackling on the field wall immediately opposite. There are probably a few poultry pecking about the front; and, if it happens to be a sunny day, a fine old English bear-hound, of the Lyme breed, called "Lion," and not much unlike his namesake in the main, may be seen stretched in a sphinx-like posture on the middle of the road, as if the whole Fylde belonged to him, by right of entail; and slowly moving his head with majestic gaze, as if turning over in his mind whether or not it would be polite to take a piece out of the passing traveller for presuming to walk that way. Perhaps in the southward fields a few kine are grazing and whisking their tails in the sunshine, or galloping from gap to gap under the influence of the gad-fly's spur; and it may happen that some wanderer from Blackpool can be seen on the cliffs, with his garments flapping in the breeze. Except these, and the rolling surge below, all is still at this end of the hamlet, unless the jovial face of the owner appear above the wall that encloses his outbuildings, wishing the passer-by "the fortune of the day." Norbreck, as a whole, is no way painfully genteel in appearance, but it is sweet and serene, and its cluster of houses seems to know how to be comfortable, without caring much for display. Dirt and destitution are unknown there; in fact, I was told that this applies generally to all the scattered population of that quiet Fylde country. Though there are many people there whose means of existence are almost as simple as those of the wild bird and the field mouse, yet squalor and starvation are strangers amongst them. If any mischance happen to any of these Fylde folk, everybody knows everybody else, and, somehow, they stick to one another, like Paddy's shrimps,-if you take up one you take up twenty. The road, which comes up thither from many a mile of playful meanderings through the green country, as soon as it quits the last house, immediately dives through the cliffs, with a sudden impulse, as if it had been reading "Robinson Crusoe," and had been drawn all that long way solely by its love |