queer, knowing, shambling animal, with a hatchet-face, a squint, a game-arm, and a limp.

"Dick Ostler," said Mrs Bickerton, in a tone of authority that showed she was (at least by adoption) Yorkshire too, "thou knowest most people and most things o' the road."

"Eye, eye, God help me, mistress,” said Dick, shrugging his shoulders betwixt a repentant and a knowing expression-" Eye! I ha' know'd a thing or twa i' ma day, mistress." He looked sharp and laughed-looked grave and sighed, as one who was prepared to take the matter either way.

"Ken'st thou this wee bit paper amang the rest, man?" said Mrs Bickerton, handing him the protection which Ratcliffe had given Jeanie Deans.

When Dick had looked at the paper, he winked with one eye, extended his grotesque mouth from ear to ear, like a navigable canal, scratched his head powerfully, and then said, "Ken?-ay-maybe we ken summat, an' it werena for harm to him, mistress?"

"None in the world," said Mrs Bickerton; "only a dram of Hollands to thyself, man, an' thou will't speak." "Why then," said Dick, giving the head-band of his breeches a knowing hoist with one hand, and kicking out one foot behind him to accommodate the adjustment of that important babiliment, "I dares to say the pass will be kenn'd weel aneugh on the road, an that be all."

"But what sort of a lad was he?" said Mrs Bickerton, winking to Jeanie, as proud of her knowing ostler.

"Why, what ken I?-Jim the Rat-why he was Cock o' the North within this twelmonth-he and Scotch Wilson, Handie Dandie, as they called him-but he's been out o' this country a while, as I rackon; but ony gentleman, as keeps the road o' this side Stamford, will respect Jim's pass."

Without asking farther questions, the landlady filled Dick Ostler a bumper of Hollands. He ducked with his head and shoulders, scraped with his more advanced

hoof, bolted the alcohol, to use the learned phrase, and withdrew to his own domains.

"I would advise thee, Jeanie," said Mrs Bickerton, an thou meetest with ugly customers o' the road, to show them this bit paper, for it will serve thee, assure thyself."

A neat little supper concluded the evening. The exported Scotswoman, Mrs Bickerton by name, eat heartily of one or two seasoned dishes, drank some sound old ale, and a glass of stiff negus; while she gave Jeanie a history of her gout, admiring how it was possible that she, whose fathers and mothers for many generations had been farmers in Lammer-muir, could have come by a disorder so totally unknown to them. Jeanie did not chuse to offend her friendly landlady, by speaking her mind on the probable origin of this complaint, but she thought on the flesh-pots of Egypt, and in spite of all entreaties to better fare, made her evening meal upon vegetables, with a glass of fair water.

Mrs Bickerton assured her, that the acceptance of any reckoning was entirely out of the question, furnished her with credentials to her correspondent in London, and to several inns upon the road where she had some influence or interest, reminded her of the precautions she should adopt for concealing her money, and as she was to depart early in the morning, took leave of her very affectionately, taking her word that she would visit her on her return to Scotland, and tell her how she had managed, and that summum bonum for a gossip," all how and about it." This Jeanie faithfully promised.

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'ed 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 explanation, 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 attention, 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 passed 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 Scots een. When I lost sight of a muckle blue hill they ca' Ingleboro', I thought I hadna a friend left in this strange land."

"As for the matter of that, young woman," said mine host, "an' you be so fond o' hill, I carena an' thou could'st carry Gunners'bury away with thee in thy lap, for it's a murther to post-horses. But here's to thy journey, and may'st thou win well through it, for thou is a bold and a canny lass."

So saying, he took a powerful pull at a solemn tankard of home-brewed ale.

"I hope there is nae bad company on the road, sir ?" said Jeanie.

"Why, when it's clean without them I'll thatch Groby pool wi' pancakes. But there arena sae mony now; and since they hae lost Jim the Rat, they hold together no better than the men of Marsham when they lost their comTake a drop ere thou goest," he concluded, offering her the tankard; "thou wilt get naething at night save Grantham gruel, nine grots, and a gallon of water." Jeanie courteously declined the tankard, and enquired what was her "lawing ?"

men.

"Thy awing? Heaven help thee, wench, what ca'st thou that?

"It is I was wanting to ken what was to pay," replied Jeanie.

"Pay? Lord help thee !-why nought, woman-we