with them, and turned them out of doors without paying them.  It would have been very odd, if, with such a farm, and such a system of farming, they hadn’t got very rich; and very rich they did get.  They generally contrived to keep their corn by them till it was very dear, and then sell it for twice its value; they had heaps of gold lying about on their floors, yet it was never known that they had given so much as a penny or a crust in charity; they never went to mass; grumbled perpetually at paying tithes; and were, in a word, of so cruel and grinding a temper, as to receive from all those with whom they had any dealings, the nickname of the “Black Brothers.”

The youngest brother, Gluck, was as completely opposed, in both appearance and character, to his seniors as could possibly be imagined or desired.  He was not above twelve years old, fair, blue-eyed, and kind in temper to every living thing.  He did not, of course, agree particularly well with his brothers, or, rather, they did not agree with him.  He was usually appointed to the honorable office of turnspit, when there was anything to roast, which was not often; for, to do the brothers justice, they were hardly less sparing upon themselves than upon other people.  At other times he used to clean the shoes, the floors, and sometimes the plates, occasionally getting what was left on them, by way of encouragement, and a wholesome quantity of dry blows, by way of education.

Things went on in this manner for a long time.  At last came a very wet summer, and everything went wrong in the country round.  The hay had hardly been got in, when the haystacks were floated bodily down to the sea by an inundation; the vines were cut to pieces with the hail; the corn was all killed by a black blight; only in the Treasure Valley, as usual, all was safe.  As it had rain when there was rain nowhere else, so it had sun when there was sun nowhere else.  Everybody came to buy corn at the farm, and went away pouring maledictions on the Black Brothers.  They asked what they liked, and got it, except from the poor people, who could only beg, and several of whom were starved at their very door, without the slightest regard or notice.

It was drawing toward winter, and very cold weather, when one day the two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual warning to little Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he was to let nobody in, and give nothing out.  Gluck sat down quite close to the fire, for it was raining very hard, and the kitchen walls were by no means dry or comfortable looking.  He turned and turned, and the roast got nice and brown.  “What a pity,” thought Gluck, “my brothers never ask anybody to dinner.  I’m sure, when they’ve got such a nice piece of mutton as this, and nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them.”

Just as he spoke, there came a double knock at the house-door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up,—­more like a puff than a knock.