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"For," said he, "the luck of Lingborough's come back, missis. It's Lob Lie-by-the-fire" "It's Lob Lie-by-the-fire!" So Thomasina whispered exultingly, and Annie the lass timidly. Thomasina cautioned the cowherd to hold his tongue, and she said nothing to the little ladies on the subject. She felt certain that they would tell the parson, and he might not approve.
It was an old stone house on the Borders, and seemed to have got its tints from the grey skies that hung above it. It was cold-looking without, but cosy within, "like a north-country heart," said Miss Kitty, who was a woman of sentiment, and kept a commonplace book. It was long before Miss Kitty's time that Lob Lie-by-the-fire first came to Lingborough.
" When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end, Then lies him down the Lubber-fiend, And, stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength." It was said that a Lob Lie-by-the-fire once haunted the little old Hall at Lingborough.
Miss Betty called him John Broom, but the people called him by the name he had earned. And long after his black hair lay white and thick on his head, like snow on the old barn roof, and when his dark eyes were dim in an honoured old age, the village children would point him out to each other, crying, "There goes Lob Lie-by-the-fire, the Luck of Lingborough!"
But I'm dying of curiosity as to the mainstay of all this good luck." "The turnips " began Miss Betty. "Bless my soul, Miss Betty!" cried the lawyer, "I'm not talking of turnips. I'm talking of Lob Lie-by-the-fire, as all the country side is for that matter." "The country people have plenty of tales of him," said Miss Betty, with some pride in the family goblin.
"Fault-finders should be free of flaws," Thomasina would say with a prim chin. She had seen the farm-bailiff himself "the worse" for more than his supper beer. But there was one history which Thomasina was always loth to relate, and it was that which both John Broom and the cowherd especially preferred the history of the Lob Lie-by-the-fire. One's neighbours' ghosts and bogles are another matter.
Thomasina has of late left the kitchen door on the latch for Its convenience, and as they had to sit up late for us, she and Annie have taken their work into the still-room to leave the kitchen free for Lob Lie-by-the-fire. They have not looked into the kitchen this evening, as such beings do not like to be watched. But they fancy that they heard It come in.
And if you took so much as a fallen apple belonging to Miss Betty, you might look out for palsy or St. Vitus' dance, or be carried off bodily to the underground folk. Finally, that it was well all the cows gave double, for that Lob Lie-by-the-fire drank two gallons of the best cream every day, with curds, porridge, and other dainties to match.
Lob Lie-By-The-Fire the Lubber-fiend, as Milton calls him is a rough kind of Brownie or House Elf, supposed to haunt some north-country homesteads, where he does the work of the farm labourers, for no grander wages than " to earn his cream bowl duly set." Not that he is insensible of the pleasures of rest, for
It is the plague of the wandering life, pleasant as it is in so many things, that it does of necessity mean the clasping of so many hands in parting, that it does of necessity mean the saying of so many farewells. Yet, after all, parting is the penalty of man for his transgression, and the most stay-at-home, lie-by-the-fire fellow has his share with the rest.
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