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CHAPTER IV.

And Need and Misery, Vice and Danger, bind,
In sad alliance, each degraded mind.

As our traveller set out early on the ensuing morning to prosecute her journey, and was in the act of leaving the inn-yard, Dick Ostler, who either had risen early or neglected to go to bed, either circumstance being equally incident to his calling, hollo'd out after her," The top of the morning to you, Moggie. Have a care o' Gunners'bury Hill, young one. Robin Hood's dead and gwone, but there be takers yet in the vale of Bever." Jeanie looked at him as if to request a further ex

planation, but, with a leer, a shuffle, and a shrug, inimitable, (unless by Emery,) Dick turned again to the raw-boned steed, which he was currying, and sung as he employed the comb and brush,

"Robin Hood was a yeoman right good,
And his bow was of trusty yew;

And if Robin said stand on the King's lea-land,
Pray, why should not we say so too?"

Jeanie pursued her journey without further enquiry, for there was nothing in Dick's manner that inclined her to prolong their conference. A painful day's journey brought her to Ferrybridge, the best inn, then and since, upon the great northern road; and an introduction from Mrs Bickerton, added to her own simple and quiet manners, so propitiated the landlady of the Swan in her favour, that the good dame procured her the convenient accommodation of a pillion and post-horse then returning to Tuxford, so that she accomplished, upon

the second day after leaving York, the longest journey she had yet made. She was a good deal fatigued by a mode of travelling to which she was less accustomed than to walking, and it was considerably later than usual on the ensuing morning that she felt herself able to resume her pilgrimage. At noon the hundred-armed Trent, and the blackened ruins of Newark Castle, demolished in the great civil war, lay before her. It may easily be supposed, that Jeanie had no curiosity to make antiquarian researches, but, entering the town, 'went straight to the inn to which she had been directed at Ferrybridge. While she procured some refreshment, she observed the girl who brought it to her, looked at her several times with fixed and peculiar interest, and at last, to her infinite surprise, enquired if her name was not Deans, and if she was not a Scotchwoman, going to London upon justice business. Jeanie, with all her simplicity of character, had

some of the caution of her country, and, according to Scottish universal custom, she answered the question by another, requesting the girl would tell her why she asked these questions?

The Maritornes of the Saracen's Head, Newark, replied, "Two women had pass. ed that morning, who had made enquiries after one Jeanie Deans, travelling to London on such an errand, and could scarce be persuaded that she had not passed on.”

Much surprised, and somewhat alarmed, (for what is inexplicable is usually alarming,) Jeanie questioned the wench about the particular appearance of these two women, but could only learn that the one was aged, and the other young; that the latter was the taller, and that the former spoke most, and seemed to maintain an authority over her companion, and that both spoke with the Scottish accent.

This conveyed no information whatever, and with an indescribable presentiment of

evil designed towards her, Jeanie adopted the resolution of taking post-horses for the next stage. In this, however, she could not be gratified; some accidental circumstances had occasioned what is called a run upon the road, and the landlord could not accommodate her with a guide and horses. After waiting some time, in hopes that a pair of horses that had gone southward would return in time for her use, she at length, feeling ashamed of her own pusillanimity, resolved to prosecute her journey in her usual manner.

"It was all plain road," she was assured, "except a high mountain called Gunners'bury Hill, about three miles from Grantham, which was her stage for the night."

"I'm glad to hear there's a hill," said Jeanie," for baith my sight and my very feet are weary o' sic tracks o' level ground -it looks a' the way between this and York as if a' the land had been trenched and levelled, whilk is very wearisome to my

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