No man had a more thorough knowledge of the proper night stations, where good feed might be procured for his charge, and good liquor for Watch and himself; Watch, like other sheepdogs, being accustomed to live chiefly on bread and beer, while his master preferred gin.

But when a rheumatic fever came one hard winter, and finally settled in Jack Bint’s limbs, reducing the most active and handy man in the parish to the state of a confirmed cripple, poor Jack, a thoughtless but kind creature, looked at his three motherless children with acute misery.  Then it was that he found help where he least expected it—­in the sense and spirit of his young daughter, a girl of twelve years old.

Hannah was a quick, clever lass of a high spirit, a firm temper, some pride, and a horror of accepting parochial relief—­that surest safeguard to the sturdy independence of the English character.  So when her father talked of giving up their comfortable cottage and removing to the workhouse, while she and her brothers must move to service, Hannah formed a bold resolution, and proceeded to act at once on her own plans and designs.

She knew that the employer in whose service her father’s health had suffered so severely was a rich and liberal cattle-dealer in the neighbourhood, who would willingly aid an old and faithful servant.  Of Farmer Oakley, accordingly, she asked, not money, but something much more in his own way—­a cow!  And, amused and interested by the child’s earnestness, the wealthy yeoman gave her a very fine young Alderney.

She then went to the lord of the manor, and, with equal knowledge of character, begged his permission to keep her cow on the shaw common.  He, too, half from real good nature, and half not to be outdone in liberality by his tenant, not only granted the requested permission, but reduced the rent so much that the produce of the vine seldom failed to satisfy their kind landlord.

Now Hannah showed great judgment in setting up as a dairy-woman.  One of the most provoking of the petty difficulties which beset a small establishment in this neighbourhood is the trouble, almost the impossibility, of procuring the pastoral luxuries of milk, eggs, and butter.  Hannah’s Alderney restored us to our rural privilege.  Speedily she established a regular and gainful trade in milk, eggs, butter, honey, and poultry—­for poultry they had always kept.

In short, during the five years she has ruled at the shaw cottage the world has gone well with Hannah Bint.  She has even taught Watch to like the buttermilk as well as strong beer, and has nearly persuaded her father to accept milk as a substitute for gin.  Not but that Hannah hath had her enemies as well as her betters.  The old woman at the lodge, who always piqued herself on being spiteful, and crying down new ways, foretold that she would come to no good; nay, even Ned Miles, the keeper, her next neighbour, who had whilom held entire sway over the shaw common, as well as its coppices, grumbled as much as so good-natured and genial a person could grumble when he found a little girl sharing his dominion, a cow grazing beside his pony, and vulgar cocks and hens hovering around the buckwheat destined to feed his noble pheasants.