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The Lubber-fiend appeared next to a boy who was loitering at a late hour somewhere near the little ladies' kitchen-garden, and whom he pursued and pelted with mud till the lad nearly lost his wits with terror. For this trick, however, the rough elf atoned by leaving three pecks of newly-gathered fruit in the kitchen the following morning.
" 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.
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
This venerable person was toddling to his home in the gloaming with a barrow load of Miss Betty's new potatoes, dexterously hidden by an upper sprinkling of groundsel and hemlock, when the Lubber-fiend sprang out from behind an elder-bush, ran at the old man with his black head, and knocked him, heels uppermost, into the ditch.
All this is precisely the conduct of Robin Goodfellow, described so charmingly by Milton: "Tells how the drudging goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly get, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn That ten day-labourers could not end; Then lays him down the lubber-fiend, And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And crop-full, out of door he flings Ere the first cock his matin rings."
The hinds stared aghast, for so grim was the appearance of the attorney, that they almost thought Hobthurst, the lubber-fiend, was addressing them. At this moment old Henry Mitton came up. He had partially recovered from the stunning effects of the blow dealt him by James Device, but his head was cut open, and his white locks were dabbled in blood.
As he watched, his wonder sank, and he grew disappointed at the collapsing of the lubber-fiend into a poor half-naked child upon whom both his courage and his fear had been wasted. As he continued to watch, an evil cloud of anger at the presumption of the unknown minimus began to gather in his mental atmosphere, and was probably the cause of some movement by which his chair gave a loud creak.
But it was the plumy tail of the sheep dog, who was lying there with the Lubber-fiend. And Lob was asleep, with his arms around the sheep dog's neck, and the sheep dog's head lay on his breast, and his own head touched the dog's. And it was a smaller head than the parson had been led to expect, and it had thick black hair.
But to John Broom and the cowherd no subject was so interesting as that of the Lubber-fiend. The cowherd sighed to think of the good old times when a man might sleep on in spite of cocks, and the stables be cleaner, and the beasts better tended than if he had been up with the lark.
This want was, however, in some degree supplied, by a most characteristic speech from Hogg himself, in which he related how the inspiration of the muse came upon him, in consequence of his being born, like Burns, on the 25th of January; how, on the evening of his birth, a man and horse were dispatched for the midwife, but the night being wild, and Ettrick deep in flood, the rider was lost; nevertheless, the familiar spirit called Brownie the Lubber-Fiend of Milton supplied his place, and brought the marvelling midwife in time to achieve the adventure of the future poet of Kilmeny.
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