slumber-profane hands struggling for the first right of appropriation.
And now, revealed against the wall, glared upon the startled violators of
the sanctuary, with glassy eyes and horrent visage, a grim monster. They
huddled back one upon the other, pale and breathless, till the eldest,
seeing that the creature moved not, took heart, approached on tip-toe-
twice receded, and twice again advanced, and finally drew out, daubed,
painted, and tricked forth in the semblance of a griffin, a gigantic
kite.

The children, alas! were not old and wise enough to knew all the dormant
value of that imprisoned aeronaut, which had cost Caleb many a dull
evening's labour--the intended gift to the false one's favourite brother.
But they guessed that it was a thing or spirit appertaining of right to
them; and they resolved, after mature consultation, to impart the secret
of their discovery to an old wooden-legged villager, who had served in
the army, who was the idol of all the children of the place, and who,
they firmly believed, knew everything under the sun, except the mystical
arts of reading and writing. Accordingly, having seen that the coast was
clear--for they considered their parents (as the children of the hard-
working often do) the natural foes to amusement--they carried the monster
into an old outhouse, and ran to the veteran to beg him to come up slyly
and inspect its properties.

Three months after this memorable event, arrived the new pastor--a slim,
prim, orderly, and starch young man, framed by nature and trained by
practice to bear a great deal of solitude and starving. Two loving
couples had waited to be married till his Reverence should arrive. The
ceremony performed, where was the registry-book? The vestry was
searched-the church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the
demise of his deaf predecessor, had come into office a little before