ON the border of Lake Champlain you will find a beautiful declivity in the present town of Ferrisburg, which commands a southerly view of the lake. In a calm summer morning you may look down on a sea of glass; and sometimes in winter, when a severe frost catches the lake asleep, you may behold a spacious mirror, polished beyond the efforts of art.

      The following account of John Grindall, who many years since lived on this declivity, is still current in the neighborhood, although time has probably added not a little to the real facts. Grindall was something more than a strict economist, one whom the present extravagant age would pronounce a miser. To give and to lose had with him the same meaning; so, to get and to keep.

      A poor traveller from the Genesee country, on his return from Canada, was overtaken in the month of November in the year 1780, a memorable cold winter in New-England, without a surtout. He tarried for a night at an inn in the neighborhood of Ferrisburg. His landlord taking pity on him, observed, "my neighbor Grindall has just bought himself, after many years, a new cloak. Call on him to-morrow morning, and tell him I sent you, and hope he will give you his old cloak; and moreover, say to him, he will never be less warm for parting with it, as a deed of charity sometimes warms the body more than a blanket."

      Accordingly the traveller called on Grindall and told his errand. The day was extremely cold, and pleaded most eloquently for the old cloak. "Have easy," said Grindall; "is it for one man to be liberal of the property of another? My neighbor is one of the most generous men in the world; for the simple reason, that he has nothing to give." "You do him wrong, sir," said the traveller; "he gave me a lodging and a breakfast; and moreover, said you were the wealthiest man in all these parts." "Ay," said Grindall, "I have grown rich by keeping, not by giving. If the weather grows much colder, I shall want not only my new cloak and my old one, but another." "So, you will want two, or more, while I have to travel more than one hundred miles without any. Your neighbor bid me tell you, a deed of charity would warm one better than a blanket." "My old cloak will fit no one but myself." "Ah! he that is warm thinks all others are so." "But you should be more provident, and not have the cloak to make when it begins to rain. However, you have one advantage, a threadbare coat is armor proof against a highwayman." "And perhaps," said the traveller, "another advantage, 'the greatest wealth is contentment with a little." "Yes," said Grindall, "many talk like philosophers and live like fools." "But, sir, if you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil." "But he is not wise who is not wise for himself; and he that would give to all, shows great good will but little wisdom." "Still, sir, you make a great purchase when you relieve the necessitous." "My receipts, all of them, are for very different purchases." "Farewell, then. You may want more than two cloaks to keep you warm if I perish with the cold."

      The traveller departed. A few days afterward a rumor was prevalent that a traveller had perished on the west side of the lake. Grindall heard the report, and reflected on the last words of the stranger; and he felt a sudden chilness shoot through his frame. There was nothing supernatural in this. The body is often the plaything of the mind. The imagination can produce a fever; and why not turn the heart to an icicle, especially as it appeared that Grindall's heart was sufficiently cold before? The morning after this rumor, he pronounced it the coldest day he had ever experienced; and he sat in his old cloak the whole day, congratulating himself that he had not given it to the traveller. The next day seemed to Grindall more severe than the former; and he put on both the old and the new cloak. Nevertheless, he was far from comfortable. The third day he sent to his tailor for a new cloak. But as the tailor could not make a cloak in a day, he borrowed the cloak of his neighbor the innkeeper.

      The weather that year, 1780, as is well known, waxed daily colder and colder, and Grindall was obliged to employ all the tailors, far and wide, for nothing could keep him warm, not even an additional cloak every day; so that Grindall soon excited the curiosity of all around him. His appearance, indeed, must have been grotesque. His circumference was soon so great that he could not pass out of his door; yet nothing less than a new cloak, daily, could relieve him. He was extremely loath to send for a physician; for having, on one occasion, been bled by a doctor, he was heard to declare that he would never part with any more of his blood, meaning thereby, his money. However, Grindall was not without medical advice. Curiosity soon filled his house. All the old ladies, far and near, Indian doctors and doctresses, offered him more remedies than can be found in the Materia Medica. Even the regular and irregular faculty gave him a call, gratis, hoping at least to learn something, either in confirmation of pre-conceived opinion, or, what was more agreeable, from practical experiment on a new disease. While it cost nothing, Grindall was willing to listen and submit. Hence his house became a hospital, and himself the patient of a thousand prescriptions. But all availed nothing; he grew colder every day. Every new cloak was but a wreath of snow. The doctors at length began to quarrel among themselves. In their various experiments they so often crossed each other's path, and administered such opposite remedies, that Grindall began to jeer them. The only perspiration he enjoyed for three months was caused by a fit of laughter at the doctor's expense. He plainly told them, if one remedy would cure, another would as certainly kill. To this each physician readily assented; but, at the same time, asserted that his own remedy was the only cure. These opposite prescriptions soon embroiled all his doctors, both male and female. At the same time there was a perplexing debate respecting the nature of the disease. While one pronounced the disorder a weakness of the blood, another asserted it was an ossification of the heart — a disorder incident to many old people, and always accompanying an undue love of money. Another said the disorder arose from a defect of blood in the heart, and the true remedy was to send the blood from the extremities to the heart. While the doctors were disputing, Grindall was growing colder and colder, and his circumference larger and larger; so that he nearly filled the largest room in his house.

      Toward spring, when the sun began to assert himself, and when the snow began to moisten, an incident befel Grindall, which has become an interesting part of this memorandum. Grindall said he had been confined to his house more than three months; and as it was a beautiful day, he would walk out and learn if there was any heat in the sun. But there was one difficulty attending this enterprize. It was necessary, in order to pass his doorway, to throw off more than seventy cloaks; for in order to feel in any way comfortable, he was obliged to add a new cloak every day. While the ceremony of disrobing was performing, Grindall complained bitterly of the cold; and before his assistants could recloak him, he became nearly senseless. At twelve o'clock he was reclothed; and as he stood on his door-step, which overlooked the lake, for the first time in his life he was sensible to the beauties of nature, though in winter. For, having been housed more than three months, the glory of the sun, the purity of the air, and the sublimity of the lake, which reflected at midday ten thousand diamonds, seemed for a moment to warm his heart. He became exhilarated, and not having the usual command of his legs, and being ill-balanced, owing to the hasty putting on of the seventy cloaks, he faltered, he reeled, and gently fell on the snow; and in a moment, owing to the sharp declivity and the moistened surface of the snow, he became a huge snow-ball. The snow, as usual, had covered the tops of the walls and fences, and there was no impediment in the descent to Lake Champlain. Accordingly, in a moment, Grindall became apparently a huge rotund snow-ball, and acquired at every rebound additional velocity: and when this man-mountain arrived at the margin of the lake, he passed its whole diameter like a schoolboy's slide.

      And now the whole country were rallied to disinter Grindall from his mountain snow-bank. Various were the speculations attending this snow-scene excavation. To some, who held Grindall in no respect, it was a half holiday; to others, more serious, connected with what had already transpired, it was more solemn. Some asserted he never could be dug out alive; others, more indifferent, said he was as safe as a toad in his winter quarters. A physician who had tried all imaginable remedies, and a few others, asserted he would come out a well man; for the rapid circulation of the snow-ball would equally circulate the man, induce a profuse perspiration through the whole system, and effect a cure. "All that may be true," said another physician, who had just arrived; "but the man can never be produced alive, for this internal heat, like a volcanic fire, will melt the surrounding snow, cause an internal deluge, and drown the man." "But," said a third, "if the man should be produced alive, he will be deranged; for as his descent may have been oblique, his brains have fallen all on one side." "Never mind what the doctors say," said one of the working men, "old Grindall may yet come out alive, and prove himself a worthy man. Though all the doctors could not cure him, this very accident may; for accident and nature are two great physicians, and have often outwitted the faculty."

      In the mean time the snow flew merrily. Curiosity lightened their labors and animated their snow-shovels. But all their efforts could not release Grindall in one day. The succeeding night was honorable to the neighborhood, for there was a general assembly of the people, and no little sympathy for the fate of Grindall. The next day additional succour came; and before midday they came in contact with the outside cloak. There was a loud and tumultuous call on Grindall. No answer; but soon they perceived a gentle moving of the cloak, as though the inhabitant was nestling. A moment more, and Grindall saw daylight. The first words he uttered were, "Cover me up again — oh, cover me up — I perish with the cold!" Disregarding his cries, they produced him to open day. But Grindall's cry was, "Another cloak, or I perish;" and this was immediately loaned him by a spectator. By the help of a sled and four horses he was soon at home again.

      When Grindall was first discovered, he looked as fresh as a new-blown damask rose; and though you could see nothing but his face, joy seemed to illumine his countenance, and so far contracted his muscles as to disclose a fine set of teeth, which shone through his many cloaks like so many orient pearls at the bottom of a dungeon.

      The spring now began gradually to exchange her heavy white robe for a silken green; and those who knew more than their neighbors said, the only doctor who could cure Grindall was the great restorer of the vegetable world. Indeed, Grindall himself now looked to the sun as his only remedy. But, to the surprise of all and the despair of poor Grindall, the sun made no more impression on him than did the great yellow dog who had been hung for sheep-stealing on the tree before his door. At midday, in the month of July, you might have seen Grindall sitting in his more than two hundred cloaks, on his door-stone, courting the notice of the sun, who regarded him with the same sensibility that he does a snow-drift in winter on Mount Bellingham. This circumstance of course gave currency to many strange stories; one, for instance, that the coldness of Grindall's head was such that a gallon of warm water, poured on his head in July, ran down to his shoulders in icicles. This, and a thousand such idle rumors, gave a miraculous coloring to the real facts. Especially as hundreds of people from the frontiers, even from Canada, both whites and Indians, attracted by curiosity, came to see a man clad in ten score of cloaks in July.

      After the summer solstice Grindall himself began to despair; for the superstition, or more probably the solemn reflection of the people, began to treat his case as something out of the common course of nature; and they believed Grindall what the Scotch call a doomed man. This was equal to an interdict of fire and water. Grindall's house became a solitude. All, even women, refrained from visiting him.

      Thus the solitary Grindall wrapped himself up in his daily cloak, and sat on his door-stone courting in vain the rays of the sun. One day, when peering wishfully through the long avenue of his cloaks at the fervid sun, to him more like the moon in winter, he was heard to exclaim, "O wretched Grindall! I am an outcast from human nature. There is no human being to sympathise with me. All forsake me. I am alone in the world; at home, without a home; in the world, but not of it. More than an outcast — all men fly me; even the women, the natural nurses of men, have lost their curiosity. The dogs do not even bark, but stare at me, and pass on. The birds have retreated to other woods. How dreadful is this solitude! If I look up, the sun has no genial smile for me; if I look down, I have no hope but in the bowels of the earth. If I look within — I dare not look within, for there a solitude reigns more dreadful still. Fool that I was — I once thought a bag of money the easiest pillow I could repose on."

      Thus the summer passed away, while Grindall had no other occupation than to procure a new cloak every day. But about the middle of November, the anniversary of the traveller's visit to him, who should call at his house but the same man who the year preceding had attempted to beg his old cloak? Grindall immediately recognized him by instinct, for that was nearly all that remained to the unhappy man; and there came over Grindall a sudden feeling that this same man was connected with his fate, and was the harbinger of a good result. Moreover, the man was supposed to have perished, and his appearance to Grindall was like one risen from his grave. The stranger was therefore doubly welcome. He heard, with apparent wonder, a relation of the events of the past year; and in conclusion, Grindall stated that he had exhausted the whole art of the faculty, who had pronounced him incurable, and that he had at length begun to despair. "A strange case indeed," said the stranger. "Tell me all that the doctors have done for you." "They have done nothing for me; but I can tell you what they have done to me. — They have made a laboratory of me, and subjected me to all sorts of experiments, cold remedies and warm, internal and external, remedies the most opposite. I have been roasted by one, boiled by another; I have been stewed, blistered, and parboiled by a third; merged in hot water, wrung out, and laid by to dry; and immediately after subjected to a cold bath. I should have been baked could they have stowed me with all my cloaks into the oven. The Spanish Inquisition is a flower-bed in comparison with the bed the doctors have spread for me. They have made an apothecary's shop of my inwards, while each one told me his own remedy was the sovereignest remedy on earth for a cold affection of the blood.

      "When the doctors relinquished me, I fell into the hands of a hundred old ladies. Good souls, they would have cured me if they could; for they exhausted all that is known of botany. I can tell you the taste of every vegetable that ever grew out of the face of the earth, both root and branch; from the sweet fern to the bitter el-wort, from henbane to nightshade. And here, O, forgive me if my cold blood warms in wrath; one pertinacious female forced down a whole dragon root, and said if that did not cure me, nothing would. It did, indeed, nearly cure me of all my earthly pains, for I thought it time to send for the sexton, the only friend I have in this world."

      "But," said the traveller, "why did you permit so many vain experiments on you? It is the delight of the physician to experiment on new cases. If he succeeds, he has achieved some great thing; if he fails, the case was remediless." "Ah!" said Grindall, "let the well man laugh at the doctors; but the sick man is all ears to those who promise help. Cannot you do something for me?" "I can tell you one thing; you are no warmer for your many cloaks. It is not the clothes that keeps the body warm, it is the body that keeps the clothes warm; and in your case it must be the heat that keeps the body warm. Therefore, whoever can warm your heart can certainly cure you." "That, I fear, is impossible; I never felt my heart warm in my life. Not one of the thousand remedies that I suffered ever touched my heart. The dragon root, which burnt up my bowels, made no impression on my heart." "Nevertheless, I can cure you if you will submit to the remedy. You may think it a cruel and tedious remedy but I believe I can warrant you a cure." "Name it, try it, I am all submission; and you shall have half of my estate." — "O, no; I must not be selfish, and oppose a cold heart to your warm one. I see a change in you already. Do you not feel a little better?" "I do, I protest I do; the last cloak I put on feels rather heavy." "The cure lies entirely with yourself; all the doctors in the universe, male and female, can do you no good. A permanently warm heart depends on the man himself." "Ah! you mock me; how can a man warm his own heart, when naturally cold?" "As easy as a man can awake from a sound sleep. Pray, tell me how many cloaks encircle you?" "This very day counts a year, that is three hundred and sixty-five cloaks." "It will require a whole year to perform a perfect cure; in the mean time you will be comfortable, more so every day." "But what horrible drug are you about to propose? I thought I had exhausted both nature and art." "Be easy, Mr. Grindall; you will swallow nothing. As your disorder has appeared to many inexplicable, your cure will appear equally so, if you can only warm your own heart. I must now leave you; I am on my annual visit to Canada; when I return, I will call and see you; but to-morrow, about this time, you may chance to find a remedy; but whether or not you will improve it, depends entirely on yourself. Farewell." The stranger immediately proceeded to the inn-keeper's house, and requested him to send on the morrow the most destitute man he could find, to Grindall. "Why, you are the very man," said the innkeeper, "who tried to beg his old cloak last winter: and the report was, you had perished with the cold. You might as well attempt to warm Grindall's heart as to obtain a cloak from him. He buys a new one every day." "No matter, say nothing about a cloak, do as I say; farewell. The stranger was not in the inn-keeper's house one minute. He was gone; and the inn-keeper soon began to think a vision had passed over him. The call, the conversation, and the departure, were all one. In a few minutes he began to treat it as the magnanimous Jefferson once treated an injury, "like one of those things that never happened." But still, the more the inn-keeper believed it a vision, the deeper impression it wrought on him. In those deep solitudes, at that time, on the frontiers of a savage wilderness, the natural easily passed into the supernatural. Therefore the inn-keeper soon resolved, whether he had suffered under an illusion or had seen a reality, to seek out, and send, a proper object to Grindall. This was no easy task. In those days it was as difficult to find a very poor man as it is now difficult to find a very honest one. However, before night he found his object; and as the next day proved extremely inclement, the inn-keeper thought it possible Grindall might give the poor man one, of three hundred and sixty-five cloaks.

      The next morning, as if by accident, the half naked man stood on the door-stone of Grindall's house, dubious whether he should enter or not. The appearance of the poor man was more eloquent than any language, and the day itself was a powerful appeal. When Grindall understood a man was standing on his door-step, he reached his spy-glass, for he was now obliged to use a long spy-glass, in order to see through the long avenue of his many cloaks. As soon as he beheld the man, "What, my friend," said Grindall, with unwonted courtesy, "has brought you here this cold day?" "I was sent here, without any errand, supposing you wanted to see me." "I did not send for you." "It is only a mistake then; farewell." "But stop, friend; you are almost naked. Are you not perishing with the cold? I am under cover of three hundred and sixty-five cloaks." "I have on my whole wardrobe," said the stranger, "and, thank Providence, my heart keeps me tolerably warm." "The heart, the heart, a warm heart," muttered Grindall to himself. To-morrow, about this time, you may expect a remedy, if you know how to improve it." "This man, without knowing it, may be the remedy." — "Why," said Grindall, "how wonderful! You almost naked, in the extremity of winter, are comfortable, while I, by my fireside, clad in three hundred and sixty-five cloaks, am suffering with cold." "I presume, sir," said the stranger, "your heart is cold; if you could warm your heart, your cloaks would be a burden to you." "Ah, that is impossible. However, you seem to be a worthy man. Heaven may have sent you here for your own good, if not for mine. One cloak among three hundred and sixty-five can make no great difference. Take this cloak; it was new yesterday, and may you never want but one at a time." "I accept it most thankfully," said the stranger, and he departed.

      The next morning Grindall either did feel, or thought he felt, a little more comfortable. He sent for the inn-keeper, and related what had happened. "I feel," said Grindall, "or fancy I feel, relieved from the burden of the last cloak." "If that is the case," said the inn-keeper, "I advise you to part with another." "With all my heart," said Grindall, "if I could find an object." "Aye, sir, I fear your trouble, now, will be to shake off your cloaks. It is easier for you to procure a new cloak every day than to find every day a worthy object." "What shall I do? My outside cloak grows heavier and heavier; it has already become a grievous burden. Pray, sir, assist me: you see I cannot go abroad with all these cloaks. If I should fall in my present bulk, I should roll again on to the lake, and might not be dug out till spring." "Your case," said the inn-keeper, "is certainly a strange one, and somewhat marvellous; for I now perceive you suffer more from the weight of your cloaks than you do from the cold. Is it not so?" "I cannot say exactly that; but the outside cloak seems to feel heavier than all the others." "I wish you were down east, in the Bay State," said the innkeeper, "among the poor people of Charlestown, who were all burnt out of house and home by the British. You would find among them objects enough; for I understand Congress never gave them a penny; only told them to call again." "If they were within one hundred yards of me, I would send every one of them a cloak," said Grindall. "But," said the inn-keeper, "why do you not take off your outside cloak if it is such a burden? Why do you wait until you can find an object on whom to bestow it?" "I have tried that experiment twice this morning, and at each time a cold shivering obliged me to put it on again; but if I could find a worthy object, like the one yesterday, I fancy that it might warm my heart. I wish to try the same experiment again, even if I send to Massachusetts." "You need not send so far; only let it be known that you have a cloak for a naked Indian on the other side of the lake, and you will not want customers." "White, black, and red, in distress," said Grindall, "are all my brethren; only find me a man in distress for a cloak, and you shall have my hearty thanks." "A wonderful change, indeed," said the inn-keeper. "It was only last summer, and there was no human being with whom you could sympathise." "True, but since yesterday I perceive I have something within they call a heart; for after I gave that cloak to the poor man yesterday, I soon felt something stir within me, warmer than all my cloaks. But talking never cured a man like me; send me a poor man in want of a cloak, that is the best doctor."

      Soon afterward a stranger entered the door, and Grindall asked if the inn-keeper had sent him. "Yes," said the stranger. "What did he tell you?" "Nothing, only to go to Mr. Grindall's house, he wanted to see me." "Right; do you know any one really in want of a good warm cloak, for you see I have more than my share." "I will thankfully receive one," said the stranger. "But with this condition," said Grindall, "that you send me a poor man who is in want of another." "With all my heart," said the stranger. "Then take it with all my heart."

      Thus, from day to day Grindall grew a little warmer. As the spring advanced, he found it more difficult to bestow his cloaks; and on the approach of summer, he was obliged to employ twenty men in scouring the country to hunt up suitable subjects. Though in winter the Indians were his best customers, yet in summer no Indian would travel far to receive a cloak.

      As the dog-days approached the anxiety of Grindall was redoubled; for as the heat increased, though he suffered nothing from the heat, yet the warmth of the remaining one hundred and fifty cloaks required constant watching, lest spontaneous combustion should consume both himself and his woollen establishment. This converted Grindall sometimes into a real pageant. While sitting in the sun, he would appear to be enveloped in a warm vapour, such as you sometimes see in a morning, rising over a meadow; and then when the sun played upon this vapour, Grindall would appear to be surrounded with beautiful rainbows. This was considered by all the curious females in the neighborhood a good sign; and they all prophesied that Grindall would yet come out bright. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Although this warm mist produced a suffocating vapour to Grindall, it was productive of no little benefit to others. Thousands of eggs were sent to Grindall, who enveloped them in his cloaks; and after a little while, from under the skirts there proceeded broods of chickens. This breed became famous. The gallant little fellow on board M'Donough's ship, who, previous to the battle on lake Champlain, perched on the fore-yard, and crowed thrice, cock-a-hoop, was of this same breed.

      One day, toward the end of August, while Grindall from his doorstone was watching the descending sun, and earnestly expecting the approach of a traveller to relieve him from his outside cloak, it is said he suddenly made an unnatural and hideous outcry, which echoed and re-echoed through the mountains, and over the lake even to Memphremagog. This ebullition of Grindall must have been terrific. For the wild beasts, then so numerous on the Green Mountains, all left their lurking-places. The bears, catamounts, and foxes, with one consent took to the trees. The wolves alone stood their ground, and answered to the supposed challenge. It was feared, at first, that this howling of the wolves would be everlasting. For as the nature of the wolf is gregarious, all within hearing assembled at the first call, and soon an army of wolves collected around the habitation of Grindall; and as their howling, like the outcry of Grindall, echoed and re-echoed among the mountains, the wolves mistook each individual howl of their own for a new challenge; and thus a continuous and unanimous howl, through the remainder of the day and following night, agitated the Green Mountains, even to Montpelier, east, and to the borders of Canada, north. But at sunrise all was quiet. The howling, from pure exhaustion, gradually died away, so that no echo was returned; and then all was as still as when Adam was a lone man.

      One good sprung out of this incident. It was remarked for several years afterward, that in the vicinity of Ferrisburg the wild beasts had become extinct. Hence, deer, sheep, and poultry, safe from their enemies, increased in geometrical progression, to the utter subversion of the theory afterward promulgated by Mr. Malthus. The fact was, the wild beasts had retired, affrighted, to other forests.

      Now, much of this wolvish story has doubtless been added to the account of Grindall. Yet it is in some degree credible; for it is well known that the human ear, placed near the earth, can hear the report of a cannon forty miles; and we know that the beasts of the forest, naturally prone downward, have an ear vastly more sensible to sounds than man.

      After this outcry, Grindall exclaimed, "What could have kept these men warm, half naked as they were, who captured Burgoyne on the other side of the lake! They must have had very warm hearts. Yes, it must be true, as the stranger told me, the heart keeps the body warm. I see it clearly, the country is safe, it never can be conquered. Burgoyne spoke the truth when he said it is impossible to conquer a people who fight till their small clothes drop off in rags. Warm hearted fellows, I wish I could give every one of them a cloak! But here am I, the wonder and horror of all around me. A dead weight on creation; worse, a monster, repulsive to man and beast; the sport of all nature. The elements conspire against me. I am equally exposed to fire and frost. The sun laughs at me, and buries me in a cloud of vapour. At one moment I am threatened with a deluge; at the next with a conflagration; then comes a wind, a heart-withering wind, and dissipates all, and whistles through my flapping cloaks, and sings in mockery,

If old Grindall's heart is as cold as his head, Old Grindall's heart is the icicle's bed.

      But this was only one of Grindall's ill turns. He was evidently growing better; and as the cool weather approached, he appeared more anxious than ever to shake off his cloaks. So far from appearing a doomed man to his neighbors, he was considered a man changed only for the better. His house began to be crowded again with the curious, and all those who delight in the marvellous. His former visitors, except his medical oracles, who confessed he was an outlaw to their several systems, came to congratulate him on what they termed his return to human nature.

      But now a new occurrence arrested the attention of all. As the season daily advanced toward the anniversary of the grand investment of the cloaks, the daily dispensation of each cloak gave rise to various reports, utterly subversive of the human character of Grindall. The fact was thus. Immediately preceding the divesting of a cloak, the cloak would appear to be animated with life. It would first tremble, then crankle, and then dance all around the body of Grindall. It would seem joyful, almost intelligent, and inclined to speak. It did not shrivel, or wrinkle, or show any sign of distress. Not a few asserted all this was accompanied by a noise not unlike the rumbling of distant thunder. But the moment the cloak was put off, it was as quiet as lambs' wool. No wonder it began to be noised abroad that there was an evil spirit in each cloak.

      Fortunate was it for Grindall that no ventriloquist added to the alarm; for in those days Mr. Page could have made all these cloaks speak whatever language he pleased, and thus the unhappy Grindall might have suffered an ignominious fate under the statute of James the First against witchcraft and sorcery. But the event soon showed there was no evil spirit concealed in these cloaks; and if I may hazard an opinion at this late day, I would account for all in a natural way. There was, no doubt, daily, a strange appearance in each cloak previous to its leaving the body of Grindall. It might tremble, and not only seem to, but really flutter about his body; this simple circumstance, even in the present enlightened times, would immediately grow into the marvellous. All these strange appearances might arise from the bounding heart of Grindall. Every cloak that he gave away expanded his heart; it beat high with the joyful assurance that, when all his cloaks had left him, he should become a proper man. Hence the agitation of his heart caused him and his whole establishment to tremble; and the supposed thunder was only the throbbing of his heart. Greater mistakes than this have been made down east, near Boston, where the good people of a certain town on the sea coast lived a whole century, after the settlement of the country, on shags, mistaking them for wild geese.

      However the truth might be respecting this affair of the cloaks, one thing is certain; it was near proving fatal to Grindall; for many of those who came to receive a cloak in charity, when they saw its tumultuous quaking, declined receiving one, through fear of catching the palsy. But after a little while, when they saw these cloaks lie so quiet when cast off from Grindall, and perfectly harmless to the wearer, the few remaining cloaks became popular, although the last of them crankled the most and danced the longest.

      The Canadian traveller, on his return, remembered his promise, and stopped to greet Grindall, who had just shaken off his last cloak. Grindall regarded him with a feeling of awful respect. He stood silent; but the traveller heard Grindall's heart speak. "Your looks, Mr. Grindall, have told me all; you have found the remedy. You now know how to keep yourself warm in the coldest weather. But in order to keep yourself constantly warm, you must keep a constantly warm heart. None of your sudden impulses, warm to-day and cold to-morrow. Most men are governed by impulses, and they endeavor to offset against habitual coldness, a single warm impulse. There is little merit in that. The rattlesnake is still poisonous, although it may show you many golden specks scattered over its back. In short, Mr. Grindall, if you desire never to want another cloak, keep a warm heart; and if you are subject to cold feet in winter, marry a worthy woman." Grindall followed this advice; and before he died, became a proverb. "As good as old Grindall," is still current west of the Green Mountains.