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Meanwhile, Mamba hid himself behind some bags of grain in the outhouse until night-fall, when he sallied boldly forth and made his way to the house of a friend, who, although not a Christian, was too fond of him to refuse him shelter. This friend was a man of rank and ancient family. The soot hung in long strings from his roof-tree. He was one of "the ancient soot!"

"I don't care a ram if they do," he said. But nobody ever did, not even Mr. Parsons. Only Frances, when she passed by that way and saw Nicky and Bonny sitting cramped and close under their roof-tree, smiled unwillingly. But her smile had in it no sort of mockery at all. Nicky wondered why.

What more can we say, good reader, than that old Mrs Crowder's wish was fulfilled to the letter, for a large family, trained by Redding and Flora to respect the laws of God and love the name of Jesus, caused the roof-tree of Loch Dhu to ring full many a year thereafter with joyous tones, that were the direct result of "health, happiness, charity, and truth."

Ah, I am rich now, sir, and as a Gorgious one could I live beneath a roof-tree. But for why, I asks you, my golden rye, when I was bred to the open and the sky? In a tent I was born; in a tent I shall die. Should I go, Gentile, it's longing for the free life I'd be, since Romany I am and ever shall be.

He drew a faded spray of the May-bloom from his doublet and touched it lightly to his lips. "What gentleman could refuse to redeem so dear a pledge? You have seen how I took head in hand and sat me down under your own roof-tree, my good Gavan of the keep. Faith, it was an even chance on which side the platter would fall, but this time the luck was mine.

Their rude beams and rafters would not satisfy the eye of a landed proprietor, but they hold up the roof-tree equally well. Every pound they spend goes its full length, and not a penny is wasted. After a while a substantial-looking cottage rises up, whitewashed and thatched.

No doubt you know this is a commemoration of the three wise men of the East presenting their offerings of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to our Lord. Storks are considered the sacred birds of Denmark. These harbingers of good-luck the children take great interest in, and more especially in the growth of the stork family on the roof-tree.

Already these mothers were erecting the invisible roof-tree and drawing around them and theirs the circle of the hearth, even though it was a circle drawn only in hot, drifting ashes. The Bishop was an inquisitor kindly of eye and understanding of heart, but by no means to be evaded.

You love that old garret-roof; and you nestle down under its slope with a sense of its protecting power that no castle-walls can give to your maturer years. Aye, your heart clings in boyhood to the roof-tree of the old family garret with a grateful affection and an earnest confidence, that the after-years whatever may be their successes, or their honors can never re-create.

Here in the mouth of this cave Rachel sat herself down and looked at the kraal, Mafooti, awaiting she knew not what, while the impi pillaged the town, and Ishmael, already half dead with fear, remained bound to the roof-tree of the hut that had been her prison.