and began to study the prescriptions as soon as they got out into the street again. To some few the deciphering seemed an easy task, but more often a long poring and an ominous shake of the head betokened that the problem was too hard. It got dusk, I could no longer distinguish features, but I stared over at the old building. Just as the dispensary then was, with its dark-red tiled walls, its porched gables, its weather-cocks and towers, and its leaden casements, it had stood as a monu- ment ever since the days of Christian IV. Even the swan which was its sign then was its sign now, standing quietly with a gold ring round his neck, and riding boots on bis feet, and with his wings just raised for flight. A burst of boyish laughter in a side room, and a very old-maidish tap at the door, broke off the train of thought which I was just entering into on the subject of caged birds.
As I said “Come in,” the elder of my landladies, Miss Martha, came in, dropped an old-fashioned curtsey, asked how I felt, and after much circum- locution, invited me to take coffee with them that evening.
“It isn’t good for you, my dear lieutenant, to sit all alone in the dark,” she added. “Won’t you just come and sit with us at once? Old Mrs. Skau and my brother’s lassies are come already, they will amuse you, perhaps, for you know you are so fond of merry bairns.”
Yes, I accepted the friendly bidding. As I stepped into the room, a pile of wood which blazed up in a great four-cornered stove, threw an un- steady glare over the apartment, which was long and deep, and furnished in the old style with higli- backed chairs covered with gilt Russian leather, and one of those sofas calculated to the meridian of hoops and pigtails. The walls were adorned with portraits of stiff dames with hard features and powdered heads of city worthies, and other famous characters in buff coats and cuirasses and red gowns.
“You really must excuse us, Lieutenant A ,
for not having lit the lights,” said Miss Cecilia, the younger sister, who in every day life was called “Mother Cis,” as she came to meet me with a curtsey own brother to her sister’s; “but the bairns are so glad to tumble about before the fire in the gloaming, and Mother Skau, too, likes to have a little gossip in the chimney corner.”
“Gossip me here, gossip me there. You’re fond enough yourself, Mother Cis, of a bit of scandal during blind man’s holiday, and yet we’re to bear all the blame,” answered the old asthmatic dame, whose name was Mother Skau.
“Well, well,” she went on, “how d’ye do, father? Come and sit down by me, and tell me how you are going on; deary me, but you’re dreadfully pulled down!” and so she chuckled over her own ailments.
So I had to tell her all about my fever, and received in return a long and detailed account of her gout and asthmatic afflictions, which by good luck was broken off by the noisy entry of the children from the kitchen, whither they had been to pay a visit to the old housekeeper and domestic calendar, ’Stina.
“Auntie, auntie!” bawled out a little, buxom, brown-eyed thing, “do you know what ’Stina says. She says I shall go with her to-night to the hay-loft, and give the brownie his Christmas goose. But I won’t go, not I, for I’m afraid of the brownie.”
“Oh! ’Stina only says that to get rid of you.
She daren’t go to the hay-loft in the dark herself, the goose! for she knows well enough she was once scared by the brownie,” said Miss Martha.
“But why don’t you say how d’ye do ’ to the lieutenant, bairns?”
“Oh no, no! is it you, lieutenant?” — “I didn’t know you!” — “How pale you are!” — “It’s so long since I saw you!” — screamed out the chil- dren, one after another, as they came round me in a troop. ‘ ‘ Now do tell us a story — something funny; it’s so long since you told us a story. Pray do tell us all about Buttercup, dear lieu- tenant; do tell us about Buttercup and Gold- , tooth.” So I had to tell them about Buttercup and his dog Goldtooh, and to throw in besides a I story or two about the two brownies, who drew I away the hay from each other, and how they met at last, each upon his own haystack, and fought I till they both flew off in a cloud of hay. I had to tell, too, of the brownie at Hesselberg, who teased the watch dog till the gudeman tossed him out at the barn-door. At this the children clapped their , hands, and laughed loud and long. “Serve him right, the ugly brownie,” they said, and asked for more.
“There, there, bairns,” said Mother Cis, “don’t tease the lieutenant any more. Now Aunt Martha will tell you a story.”
“Yes, yes! do tell, Aimt Martha!” was the cry of one and all.
“I’m sure I don’t know what to tell, answered Aunt Martha; “but since we’ve got to talk about the brownie, I’ll tell you a little story about him. I daresay, bairns, you mind old Katie Gusdal, who used to come and bake bannocks, and always had so many stories to tell?”
“Oh, yes!” bawled out the children.
“Well, old Katie told us that she once lived at service in the Foundling here for many a year.
It was then still more lonely and sad at that side of the town than it is now; and as for the Foundling, we all know it’s a dark and gloomy house. Well, when Katie took the place she was to be cook; and a fine stout strapping lassie she was. One night, when she had to get up to brew, the rest of the servants said to her, ‘ Now you must mind and take care not to get up too early; before the clock strikes two you mustn’t put the wort on the fire. ’
“‘ Why not? ’ she asked.
“‘You know, well enough, there’s a brownie here; and you ought to know, too, he doesn’t like to be roused so early; and so before the clock strikes two, you’re not to think of meddling with the wort, ’ they said.
“‘ Stuff! nothing worse than that?’ said Katie, who had a tongue and a will of her own, as they say. ‘ I have nothing to do with the brownie; but if he comes across me, may the old gentleman take me if I don’t sweep him out of the house! ’
“Well, the rest warned her again, but she
stuck to her own; and when the clock, might be,