this 'ere bird rale good? Just a drop o' sperrits to warm his in'ards for him—that's what he wants. See here, I'll carry him awhoam for ye, and ye mun jest fotch him a glass o' whisky, and in a two three minutes he'll be as merry as a layrock." 

 Margaret looked doubtfully at him. 

 "Do ye raly think it 'ud do the poor thing good?" she asked dolefully. 

 "I'm sure on't," returned Ted, firmly pinioning the gander's struggling legs, and setting off at a brisk pace towards Margaret's cottage. "Theer's nought as is wick as wouldn't feel the benefit of a drop o' sperrits now an' again." 

 Joe considered this a very proper sentiment, and gave a grunt by way of endorsing it; he, too, followed Ted and the gander, being as much amused at the transaction as it was in his nature to be at anything. 

 Margaret kept pace with Ted, every now and then uttering lamentations over her favourite. 

 "He were as good a gander as a body need wish for; wonderful good breed he were, an' as knowin'! Eh, dear, I never wanted for coompany when Victoria were theer." 

 "Victoria!" ejaculated Ted, stopping short and facing her; "why, that's a female name!" 

 "It's the Queen's name," rejoined Margaret, with a certain melancholy triumph. 

 "I thought it had been a gander; it is a gander, surely?" 

 "Oh, it's a gander reet 'nough. But I thought it were a goose to begin wi'. It were the biggest o' th' clutch, an' the prattiest, an' so I called it Victoria, an' it geet to know th' name, an' to coom when I called it—eh, it 'ud coom runnin' up an' croodle down aside o' me, turnin' its yead o' one side that knowin'! Eh, dear, theer never was sich a bird. An' when it were upgrown, an' turned out to be a gander, I 'adn't it i' my 'eart to change th' name, seein' as it had getten to know it so well, an' arter all, seein' as it's th' head of all th' fowls i' my place, it doesn't seem to coom amiss. Canon, he wanted me to call it Prince Consort, or else Albert Edward, but it didn't seem natural like, an' I've allus been used to call my white drake Albert Edward; and Prince Consort, he's th' owd rooster." 

 "Well," said Ted, hoisting up the gander again under his arm, and chuckling as he walked forward, "well, that beats all! I never heerd sich a tale i' my life. 

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