a benefit for their friend. Accordingly, they appeared under the window of Amos's parlour, where he slept, in his low cottage of one story, before it grew light one morning, and one of them said, in a solemn tone," Amos! Amos!" On which, poor Amos, who was probably lying awake thinking of his plants and planets, immediately made answer, in a voice of the deepest reverence, "Speak, Lord, for thy sarvant heareth!" To which the rogues without rejoined, "Amos! Amos! I command thee to arise and break all the church windows!"

To which Amos at once replied, "Lord thy sarvant will obey thee!"

man:

On this, the two fellows hastened away to watch in the churchyard for the approach of the old As he did not arrive, however, so soon as they expected, and as the dawn rapidly advanced, they fell to and demolished the windows themselves, and hastened away, knowing that Dick Redfern would have to glaze them, and thinking that it would be a capital job for him. Amos, who, though old and slow, was as zealous as he was credulous, soon after appeared on the scene, armed with a long leaping-pole which he had used in nimbler days, to enable him to spring across streams and bogs, on his herbalist rambles. No sooner, however, did he see that the win

dows were all broken, than, with a look of astonishment and self-reproach, he made his retreat.

Scarcely was daylight established, when the strange discovery of the demolition of the windows was made, and flew all over the parish. Many were the conjectures who the sacrilegious depredators could be, and some one soon said that he had seen old Amos Wire coming in haste, at daybreak, out of the churchyard, armed with his rantipole. This was enough: Amos was speedily summoned to the presence of the Squire, who was the magistrate. Accused of the fact, Amos did not attempt to deny it; on the contrary, he frankly declared that he had been called upon by the voice of the Lord to go and do that deed, and went on purpose; but, to his astonishment, had found that he had not been active enough in his zeal, and that, to his unspeakable mortification, some more faithful servant had been employed to execute it.

Such was the well-known truth and simplicity of Amos, that both magistrate and clergyman saw at once that the thing was the work of some designing scoundrels who meant to have made a tool of him, but had, probably, as was the fact, found him too tardy in his motions. He was therefore dismissed, and a messenger was sent off for the glazier, our Dick. But the two perpetra

tors were before him, and related what they had done, and what a famous job it would be for him. To their great amazement, however, instead of signs of correspondent joy in Dick's face, they saw him stand as if he was shot, and, with a face white as a ghost, he exclaimed,

"'Od rot it, lads! You've done for me! I glaze the whole church by the year !”

This was a blow too much. It spoiled, for a while, all his mirth. It cost him the whole of his spare capital to repair the disastrous labour of his friends, who, thunderstruck at the announcement of a fact of which they had never dreamed, slunk away and dared not for many a day to show their faces at the King of Prussia.

Dick faithfully repaired all the windows with glass of the best quality, never asking a consideration of the parish for so unlooked-for an accident; and as for Bill Newton and Jack Shelton, they were as poor as church-mice themselves, and could not help him to repair their fault by helping him to repair the windows. From that time the glory of the King of Prussia departed. Old Kester Colclough, when he heard of the transaction, was nearer the mark than he perhaps had ever been before, for he protested that it "was certainly Bill Newton, Jack Shelton, or some-. body else."

Old Squire Fletcher died soon after. Mester Colclough became too infirm to get to the village, and in a few years died also. Bill Newton was overtaken by troubles which curbed his spirit, and Jack Shelton went off nobody knew whither. Yet for many a year afterwards did poor Dick Redfern wander about the old neighbourhood, a thin, grey, and crazy fellow, such as I have described him, everybody saying, "See what the sharpest wits may come to!"

When he was dead, little property was found, or debts in his books due to him; there were, however, these singular entries:

Joe Clay, Dr.

£

8. d.

. 0 10 6

To putting out my eye with a stick, at the King of

Prussia.

Sam Argill, Dr.

To breaking me two fiddlesticks.

Thus he valued his eyes at exactly two fiddlesticks.

JOCKEY DAWES.

THERE was not a man in all that part of the country who was able to compete in wit with our old friend Dick Redfern, in his best days, but Jockey Dawes-and the jockey has a fame as extensive and enduring as Dick himself. By a jockey, the people of the midland counties, in parlance, do not mean, as the term more usually signifies, a rider at races, but a horse-dealer, a horse-jockey.

Jockey Dawes was a prince and a leader in his profession, and that, as all the world knows, requires a keen wit and cunning. There is no trade in which overreaching is more highly estimated as a science. With this class of men it is a constant battle of intellects. It is always