really been attacked; at least there were
men's footsteps to be seen on the flower-borders,
underneath the kitchen windows,
"where nae men should be; " and Carlo had
barked all through the night as if strangers
were abroad. Mrs. Jamieson had been
awakened by Lady Glenmire, and they had
rung the bell which communicated with
Mr. Mulliner's room, in the third story,
and when his night-capped head had appeared
over the bannisters, in answer to the
summons, they had told him of their alarm,
and the reasons for it; whereupon he retreated
into his bed-room, and locked the
door (for fear of draughts, as he informed
them in the morning), and opened the window,
and called out valiantly to say, if the supposed
robbers would come to him he would fight
them; but, as Lady Glenmire observed, that
was but poor comfort, since they would have
to pass by Mrs. Jamieson's room and her own,
before they could reach him, and must be of
a very pugnacious disposition indeed, if they
neglected the opportunities of robbery presented
by the unguarded lower stories to go
up to a garret, and there force a door in
order to get at the champion of the house.
Lady Glenmire, after waiting and listening
for some time in the drawing-room, had
proposed to Mrs. Jamieson that they should
go to bed; but that lady said she should
not feel comfortable unless she sat up and
watched; and, accordingly, she packed herself
warmly up on the sofa, where she was found
by the housemaid, when she came into the
room at six o'clock, fast asleep; but Lady
Glenmire went to bed, and kept awake all
night.

When Miss Pole heard of this, she nodded
her head in great satisfaction. She had been
sure we should hear of something happening
in Cranford that night; and we had heard.
It was clear enough they had first proposed
to attack her house; but when they saw that
she and Betty were on their guard, and had
carried off the plate, they had changed their
tactics and gone to Mrs. Jamieson's, and no
one knew what might have happened if Carlo
had not barked, like a good dog as he was!
Poor Carlo! his barking days were nearly
over. Whether the gang who infested the
neighbourhood were afraid of him; or whether
they were revengeful enough for the way in
which he had baffled them on the night in
question to poison him; or whether, as some
among the more uneducated people thought,
he died of apoplexy, brought on by too much
feeding and too little exercise; at any rate,
it is certain that two days after this eventful
night Carlo was found dead, with his poor
little legs stretched out stiff in the attitude of
running, as if by such unusual exertion lie
could escape the fell pursuer, Death. We
were all sorry for Carlo, the old familiar
friend who had snapped at us for so many
years; and the mysterious mode of his death
made us very uncomfortable. Could Signor
Brunoni be at the bottom of this? He had apparently
killed a canary with only a word of
command; his will seemed of deadly force;
who knew but what he might yet be lingering
in the neighbourhood willing all sorts of awful
things! We whispered these fancies among
ourselves in the evenings; but in the mornings
our courage came back with the daylight,
and in a week's time we had got over the
shock of Carlo's death; all but Mrs. Jamieson.
She, poor thing, felt it as she had felt no
event since her husband's death; indeed,
Miss Pole said, that as the Honourable Mr.
Jamieson drank a good deal, and occasioned
her much uneasiness, it was possible that
Carlo's death might be the greater affliction.
But there was always a tinge of cynicism in
Miss Pole's remarks. However, one thing
was clear and certain; it was necessary for
Mrs. Jamieson to have some change of scene;
and Mr. Mulliner was very impressive on
this point, shaking his head whenever we
inquired after his mistress, and speaking of
her loss of appetite and bad nights very
ominously; and with justice too, for if she
had two characteristics in her natural state
of health, they were a facility of eating
and sleeping. If she could neither eat nor
sleep, she must be indeed out of spirits and
out of health. Lady Glenrnire (who had evidently
taken very kindly to Cranford), did
not like the idea of Mrs. Jamieson's going to
Cheltenham, and more than once insinuated
pretty plainly that it was Mr. Mulliner's
doing, who had been much alarmed on the
occasion of the house being attacked, and since
had said, more than once, that he felt it a very
responsible charge to have to defend so many
women. However, Mrs. Jamieson went to
Cheltenham, escorted by Mr. Mulliner; and
Lady Glenmire remained in possession of the
house, her ostensible office being to take care
that the maid-servants did not pick up followers.
She made a very pleasant-looking
dragon: and, as soon as it was arranged for her
to stay in Cranford, she found out that Mrs.
Jamieson's visit to Cheltenham was just the
best thing in the world. She had let her
house in Edinburgh, and was for the time
houseless, so the charge of her sister-in-law's
comfortable abode was very convenient and
acceptable.

THE DIRTY OLD MAN.

A  LAY OF LEADENHALL.

A singular man, named Nathaniel Bentley, for
many years kept a large hardware shop in Leadenhall
Street, London. He was best known as Dirty Dick
(Dick for alliteration's sake probably), and his
place of business us the Dirty Warehouse. He
died about the year 1809. These verses accord
with the accounts respecting himself and his house.

In a dirty old house lived a Dirty Old Man;
Soap, towels, or brushes were not in his plan.
For forty long years, as the neighbours declared,
His house never once had been cleaned or repaired.