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LXX

FALSE FRIENDS-LIKE

I was still a boy and mother's pride, er boy spoke up to me so kind-like, do like, I'll treat you with a ride wheel-barrow.' So then I was blind-like at he had a-working in his mind-like, ounted for a passenger inside; oming to a puddle, pretty wide,

p'd me in a-grinning back behind-like. en a man may come to me so thick-like, hake my hand where once he pass'd me by, ell me he would do me this or that, help thinking of the big boy's trick-like, en, for all I can but wag my hat, hank him, I do feel a little shy.

W. Barnes

LXXI

DY BLAKE AND HARRY GILL

A true story

what's the matter? what's the matter? it is't that ails young Harry Gill, : evermore his teeth they chatter, ter, chatter, chatter still? vaistcoats Harry has no lack, 1 duffil grey, and flannel fine; as a blanket on his back, coats enough to smother nine.

In March, December, and in July,
'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
The neighbours tell, and tell you truly,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still.
At night, at morning, and at noon,
'Tis all the same with Harry Gill;
Beneath the sun, beneath the moon,
His teeth they chatter, chatter still.

Young Harry was a lusty drover,
And who so stout of limb as he?
His cheeks were red as ruddy clover;
His voice was like the voice of three.
Old Goody Blake was old and poor;
Ill fed she was and thinly clad;
And any man who passed her door
Might see how poor a hut she had.

All day she spun in her poor dwelling :
And then her three hours' work at night,
Alas! 'twas hardly worth the telling,
It would not pay for candle-light.
Remote from sheltered village green,
On a hill's northern side she dwelt,
Where from sea-blasts the hawthorns lean,
And hoary dews are slow to melt.

By the same fire to boil their pottage,
Two poor old Dames, as I have known,
Will often live in one small cottage;
But she, poor woman! housed alone.
'Twas well enough when summer came,
The long, warm, lightsome summer day,
Then at her door the canty dame
Would sit, as any linnet gay.

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ut when the ice our streams did fetter,
h, then how her old bones would shake!
Ou would have said, if you had met her,
was a hard time for Goody Blake.

er evenings then were dull and dead :
d case it was, as you may think,
r very cold to go to bed,

d then for cold not sleep a wink.

joy for her! whene'er in winter
e winds at night had made a rout;
d scattered many a lusty splinter,
many a rotten bough about.

d

I never had she, well or sick, every man who knew her says, ile beforehand, turf or stick, ough to warm her for three days.

w, when the frost was past enduring, I made her poor old bones to ache, ■ld any thing be more alluring an an old hedge to Goody Blake? now and then, it must be said, en her old bones were cold and chill, left her fire, or left her bed, seek the hedge of Harry Gill.

Harry he had long suspected 5 trespass of old Goody Blake;

I vowed that she should be detectedt he on her would vengeance take; oft from his warm fire he'd go, to the fields his road would take; there, at night, in frost and snow, watched to seize old Goody Blake.

K

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