When night comes on, and the evening star glints out of the himmel-blue, you can generally manage to creep into a shed or shieling of some sort; and if not, you have only to fall back upon the cosy hayrick.
Oh! I believe there are worse lives than yours; and if I were not a gipsy, I am not sure I would not turn a tramp myself.
The Man with the Iron Mask.
We came across him frequently away up in the north of England, and a mysterious-looking individual he is, nearly always old, say on the shady side of sixty.
There he sits now on a little three-legged stool by the wayside. In front of him is a kind of anvil, in his hand a hammer. To his right is a heap of stones mingled with gravel; from this he fills a mounted sieve, and rakes the stones therefrom with his hammer as he wants them.
The iron mask is to protect his face and eyes, and a curious spectacle he looks. He has probably been sitting there since morning, but as soon as the shades of evening fall, he will take up his stool and his hammer and wend his way homewards to his little cottage in the glen, and it is to be hoped his “old ’ooman” will have something nice ready for his supper.
The Scotch Collie Dog.
Where will you find a dog with a more honest and open countenance than Collie, or one more energetic and willing, or more devoted to his master’s interest? Says Bobbie Burns in his “Twa Dogs:”