There is a large old-fashioned fire-place in the farm-house, which
affords fine quarters for a chimney-corner sprite that likes to lie
warm; especially as Ready-Money Jack keeps up rousing fires in the
winter-time. The old people of the village recollect many stories
about this goblin, that were current in their young days. It was
thought to have brought good luck to the house, and to be the reason
why the Tibbets were always beforehand in the world, and why their
farm was always in better order, their hay got in sooner, and their
corn better stacked, than that of their neighbours. The present Mrs.
Tibbets, at the time of her courtship, had a number of these stories
told her by the country gossips; and when married, was a little
fearful about living in a house where such a hobgoblin was said to
haunt: Jack, however, who has always treated this story with great
contempt, assured her that there was no spirit kept about his house
that he could not at any time lay in the Red Sea with one flourish of
his cudgel. Still his wife has never got completely over her notions
on the subject, but has a horseshoe nailed on the threshold, and keeps
a branch of rauntry, or mountain ash, with its red berries, suspended
from one of the great beams in the parlour--a sure protection from all
evil spirits.
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