But where was Ian during the beet carving? Father quite forgot him
until, Richard falling asleep in his arms, he arose to tuck him up on
the sofa. A sound of the slow turning of large pages guided him to the
corner by the bay window where some bookcases, standing back to back,
made a sort of alcove. There was Ian, flat upon his stomach, while
before him the "Wandering Jew" legend, with the Doré pictures, lay open
at the final scene--The Last Judgment--where the Jew, his journey over,
looks up at the angels coming to greet him, while little devils pull
vainly at his tattered boots. It was not the Jew or the angels, however,
that held Ian's attention, and whose outlines he was tracing with his
forefinger, but the devils, one big fellow with cows' horns and wings
drooping like those of a moulting crow, and a bevy of imps with young
horns and curly tails who were pulling a half-buried body toward the
fiery pit by its hair.

Father explained the pictures in brief, and closed the book as quickly as
possible, thinking the boy might be frightened in his dreams by the
demons. But no, Ian was fascinated, not frightened. He would have liked
the pygmies to come and play with him, and he turned to father with a
sigh, saying, "They're bully pullers, dranpop. I guess if they and me
pulled against Corney Delaney we could get him over the line all right,"
one of the boys' favourite pastimes being to play tug-of-war with the
goat, the rope being fastened to its horns, but Corney was always
conqueror.

Neither did Ian forget the imps quickly, as some children do their
impressions, but strove to model them this morning, making round snow
bodies, carrot horns, corncob legs, and funny celery tails; the result
being positively startling and "overmuch like witch brats," as Effie