His subsequent adventures took him through the heat of the election, at which his ingenuity was displayed in unwittingly stopping up the mouth of the trumpet on which the Honorable Mr. Scatterbrain’s supporters relied to drown Mr. Egan’s speeches and those of his men. He thus did a good turn to his old master without knowing it, having merely imitated the action of the trumpeter, who had pretended to cork up the instrument before momentarily laying it aside.
When his fortunes seemed to be at their lowest ebb, Andy was discovered to be the rightful heir to the Scatterbrain title and estates, his claims to which were set forth in the second of the two letters stolen from the post-office, which had been destroyed by the squire without his reading it.
ANDY TURNS OUT TO BE OF GENTLE
BIRTH AND COMES INTO HIS OWN
Soon afterward, through his old master’s influence, Andy was taken to London, and by dint of much effort remedied many of the defects of his early education. Then, marrying his cousin, Onoah, who had shared his mother’s cabin in the old days, and to save whom from a desperado Andy had, this time knowingly, braved great personal danger, our hero settled down to the enjoyment of a life such as he had never dreamed of in his humble days.
THE GREEDY SHEPHERD
Once upon a time there lived in the South Country two brothers, whose business it was to keep sheep. No one lived on that plain but shepherds, who watched their sheep so carefully that no lamb was ever lost.
There was none among them more careful than these two brothers, one of whom was called Clutch, and the other Kind. Though brothers, no two men could be more unlike in disposition. Clutch thought of nothing but how to make some profit for himself, while Kind would have shared his last morsel with a hungry dog. This covetous mind made Clutch keep all his father’s sheep when the old man was dead, because he was the eldest brother, allowing Kind nothing but the place of a servant to help him in looking after them.
For some time the brothers lived peaceably in their father’s cottage, and kept their flock on the grassy plain, till new troubles arose through Clutch’s covetousness.
One midsummer it so happened that the traders praised the wool of Clutch’s flock more than all they found on the plain, and gave him the highest price for it. That was an unlucky thing for the sheep, for after that Clutch thought he could never get enough wool off them. At shearing time nobody clipped so close as Clutch, and, in spite of all Kind could do or say, he left the poor sheep as bare as if they had been shaven. Kind didn’t like these doings, but Clutch always tried to persuade him that close clipping was good for the sheep, and Kind always tried to make him think he had got all the wool. Still Clutch sold the wool, and stored up his profits, and one midsummer after another passed. The shepherds began to think him a rich man, and close clipping might have become the fashion but for a strange thing which happened to his flock.