One year in the last quarter of the present century John Frost, Esquire, of Arctic Hall, paid an unusually long visit to the British Islands.

 

John, or Jack, Frost, as he was familiarly called by those who did not fear him, was a powerful fellow; an amazingly active, vigorous, self-willed fellow, whom it was difficult to resist, and, in some circumstances, quite impossible to overcome.

 

Jack was a giant. Indeed, it is not improbable that he was also a “giant-killer,”—an insolent², self-assertive, cold-hearted giant, who swaggered with equal freedom into the palaces of the rich and the cottages of the poor; but he did not by any means meet with the same reception everywhere.

 

In palaces and mansions⁴ he was usually met in the entrance hall by a sturdy footman who kicked him out and slammed the door in his face, while in cottages and lowly dwellings⁵ he was so feebly opposed that he gained entrance easily—for he was a bullying⁶ shameless fellow, who forced his way wherever he could—and was induced to quit only after much remonstrance⁷ and persuasion⁸, and even then, he usually left an unpleasant flavour of his visit behind him.

 

But there were some abodes⁹ in which our hero met with no opposition¹⁰ at all, where the inmates¹¹ scarcely made any attempt to keep him out, but remained still and trembled, or moaned feebly, while he walked in and sat down beside them.

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