Sabine Baring-Gould

“ Joe began to cry.
“There,” she said, “don't cry. When wicked children do wicked things they must suffer for them. It is the law of nature. And,” she went on, “you ought to be that ashamed of yourself that you'd be glad for the earth to open under you and swallow you up like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Running away from so good and happy a home and such tender parents! But I reckon you be lost to natural affection as you be to reason.”
“May I take my fiddle with me?” asked the boy.
“Oh, take your fiddle if you like,” answered his mother. “Much good may it do you. ”

“ Presently Joe was seated on the doorstep, with his ear against the wooden door, and the blackberries and the can, and stepmother's orders and father's stick, and his hard bed and his meagre meals, even the whole world had passed away as a scroll that is rolled up and laid aside, and he lived only in the world of music. ”

“ Miss Amory came to the cottage to see him, and finding father and stepmother out, went in and pressed five shillings into his hand. Then he laughed with delight, and clapped his hands, and hid the money away in his pocket, but he said nothing, and Miss Amory went away convinced that the child was half a fool. But little Joe had sense in his head, though his head was different from those of others; he knew that now he had the money wherewith to buy the beautiful fiddle he had seen in the shop window many months before, and to get which he had worked and denied himself food. ”

“ All of the party drew nearer to the wall of the graveyard. One man, incapable of maintaining his legs unaided, sustained himself on the arm of another.
“Well, I do believe, Churchwarden Eggins, as how you have been leading us a wild goose chase!” said a fellow.
Then the clouds broke, and a bright, dazzling pure ray shot down on a grave in the churchyard, and revealed a little figure lying on it.
“I do believe,” said one man, “as how, if he ain't led us a goose chase, he's brought us after a Gander—surely that is little Joe.” ”

“ Lambole contemptuously, “born without his nails on fingers and toes; they growed later. His wits have never come right, and a deal, a deal of larruping it will take to make 'em grow. Use the rod; we won't grumble at you for doing so.”
Little Joe Lambole when he came into the world had not been expected to live. He was a poor, small, miserable baby, that could not roar, but whimpered. He had been privately baptised directly he was born, because, at the first, Mrs. Lambole said, “The child is mine, though it be such a creetur, and I wouldn't like it, according, to be buried like a dog.” ”

“ Amory: “How strange it is that among the English lower classes there is no love of music.”
“There is none at all,” answered Mrs. Amory; “our rector's wife has given herself great trouble to get up parochial entertainments, but we find that nothing takes with the people but comic songs, and these, instead of elevating, vulgarise them.”
“They have no music in them. The only people with music in their souls are the Germans and the Italians.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Amory with a sigh; “it is sad, but true: there is neither poetry, nor picturesqueness, nor music among the English peasantry.” ”

“ Wait till we get home, and I'll make pretty music out of that there fiddle! just you see if I don't.”
Joe shivered in his seat, and his head fell.
Mr. Lambole had a playful wit. He beguiled his journey home by indulging in it, and his humour flashed above the head of the child like summer lightning. “You're hardly expecting the abundance of the supper that's awaiting you,” he said, with his black patch glowering down at the irresponsive heap in the corner of the cart. “No stinting of the dressing, I can tell you. You like your meat well basted, don't you? ”

“ Then when with a shock the parson and the church-wardens saw the ragged urchin coming up the nave fiddling, with his hat on, regardless of the sacredness of the place, and above all of the sacredness of the presence of the squire, J.P. and D.L., the rector coughed very loud and looked hard at his churchwarden, Farmer Eggins, who turned red as the sun in a November fog, and rose. At the same instant the people's churchwarden rose, and both advanced upon Joe Gander from opposite sides of the church. ”

“ Lambole; “and with this creetur on our hands I mainly believe the tale. They do say that the pixies steal away the babies of Christian folk, and put their own bantlings in their stead. The only way to find out is to heat a poker red-hot and ram it down the throat of the child; and when you do that the door opens, and in comes the pixy mother and runs off with her own child, and leaves your proper babe behind. That's what we ought to ha' done wi' Joe.” ”

“ Lambole, “what masses of good food you do eat. You're perfectly insatiable. You cost us more than it would to keep a cow.”
“Oh, steppy, I won't eat so much if I may have my penny!”
“Very well. Eating such a lot does no one good. If you will be content with one slice of bread for breakfast instead of two, and the same for supper, you shall have your penny. If you are so very hungry you can always get a swede or a mangold out of Farmer Eggins's field. ”

“ Lambole. “And yet we call this a land of liberty! Law ain't made for the poor, but for the rich.”
“It is wickedness,” argued the father. “It is just the same with colts—all wickedness. You must drive it out with the stick.”
And now a great temptation fell on little Gander Joe. The squire and his family were at home, and the daughter of the house, Miss Amory, was musical. Her mother played on the piano and the young lady on the violin. The fashion for ladies to play on this instrument had come in, and Miss Amory had taken lessons from the best masters in town. ”

“ I will see to having him sent to an asylum for idiots in which I have some interest. There's no knowing,” said the squire, “no knowing but that with wholesome food, cleanliness, and kindness his feeble mind may be got to understand that two and two make four, which I learn he has not yet mastered.”
Every Saturday evening Joe Gander brought his sixpence home to his stepmother. The woman was not so regular in allowing him his penny out.
“Your edication costs such a lot of money,” she said. “Steppy, need I go to school any more?” He never could frame his mouth to call her mother. ”

“ Mr. Lambole had made inquiries when it was discovered that Joe was lost, first at the school, where it was most unlikely he would be found, then at the public-house, at the gardener's and the gamekeeper's; then he had looked down the well and then up the chimney. After that he went to the cottage in the quarry. Roger Gale knew nothing of him. Presently someone coming from the nearest village mentioned that he had been seen there; whereupon Lambole borrowed Farmer Eggins's trap and went after him, peering right and left of the road with his one eye. ”

“ What in the name of Thunder and Bones do you mean squandering the precious money over fooleries like that for? I've got my pipe, black as your back shall be before tomorrow, and mother has an old thimble as full o' holes as I'll make your skin before the night is much older. ”

“ Pickles? I can promise you that there is something in pickle for you, hot—very hot and stinging. Plenty of capers—mutton and capers. Mashed potatoes? Was the request for that on the tip of your tongue? Sorry I can give you only half what you want—the mash, not the potatoes. There is nothing comparable in my mind to young pig with crackling. The hide is well striped, cut in lines from the neck to the tail. I think we'll have crackling on our pig before morning.”
He now threw his seeing eye into the depths of the cart, to note the effect his fun had on the child, but he was disappointed. ”

“ Lambole sent Joe out with other children to collect the berries in a tin can; she sold them for fourpence a quart, and any child could earn eightpence a day in whortleberry time; one that was active might earn a shilling. ”