"Well it's not so much the garden," said Mrs. Alexander with alacrity,
"but I think he might be very useful to you, dear, and it's such a
great matter his being a teetotaler, and he seems so fond of animals. I
really feel we ought to try and make up to him somehow for the loss of
his dog; though, indeed, a more deplorable object than that poor mangy
dog I never saw!"

"All right: we'll put him in the back lodge, and we'll give him Bizzy as
a watch dog. Won't we, Bizzy?" replied Freddy, dragging the somnolent
Bismarck from out of the heart of the hearthrug, and accepting without
repugnance the comprehensive lick that enveloped his chin.

From which it may be gathered that Mrs. Alexander and her son had
fallen, like their household, under the fatal spell of the fascinating
tinker.

At about the time that this conversation was taking place, Mr. Fennessy,
having spent an evening of valedictory carouse with his tribe in the
ruined cottage, was walking, somewhat unsteadily, towards the wood,
dragging after him by a rope a large dog. He did not notice that he was
being followed by a barefooted woman, but the dog did, and, being an
intelligent dog, was in some degree reassured. In the wood the tinker
spent some time in selecting a tree with a projecting branch suitable to
his purpose, and having found one he proceeded to hang the dog. Even in
his cups Mr. Fennessy made sentiment subservient to common sense.

It is hardly too much to say that in a week the tinker had taken up a
position in the Craffroe household only comparable to that of Ygdrasil,
who in Norse mythology forms the ultimate support of all things. Save
for the incessant demands upon his skill in the matter of solder and