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“Yo’ see, Bess, if aw hadna bin theer he’d a bin dreawnded, sure as wayter’s wet, an’ th’ third toime pays off fur o’; so he mun larn to tak’ care on himsel’ th’ next toime he marlocks gambols among th’ Jack-sharps.”

Jabez was not six years old when Simon Clegg gave him and the young Coopers their first lesson in swimming, in a delightful and sequestered part of Smedley Vale, where the Irk was clear and bright. He had shown them, nearer home, how a frog used its limbs, and then, after a few preliminary evolutions, to show how a man used his, took the lad on his back, and, after swimming with him awhile shook him off into the water to flounder about for himself.

Bess was often left at home on Sundays after that; and Jabez was not merely the better for his bath, but by the time he was eight years old was a fearless swimmer.

Yet, although these country rambles had become an institution, Simon Clegg never neglected his Sabbath duties. Sunday morning was sure to see him, clean-shaven, in his best suit, with Jabez by the hand, and mild-eyed Bess beside, on the free seats of the Old Church, under the eye of parsons and churchwardens; and Jabez if he could understand little of the service, could gather in a sense of the beautiful from the grand old architecture, from the swell of the solemn organ, the harmonious voices of the choristers—of the Blue-coat boys in the Chetham-gallery over the churchwarden’s pew, and of the Green-coat children farther on. Then the silver mace carried before the parson was a thing to wonder at, and fill him with awe; and no one could tell how the clerical robes, and choristers’ surplices, transfigured common mortals in his admiring eyes.