strange old man he had seen on the Fell. Mr. Barlow was toothless and
nut-cracker like of outline; he was thin and shrunken, and bent with the
burden of long years, but his healthy visage had none of those deep
lines, those cross markings and hollows which made the pallid
countenance of that other old man as ghastly as would be the abstract
idea of life's last stage embodied by the bitter pencil of a Hogarth.

'I have brought a gentleman from London to see you, Sam,' said Mary. 'He
fancied he met you on the Fell the other morning.'

Barlow rose and quavered a cheery welcome, but protested against the
idea of his having got so far as the Fell.

'With my blessed rheumatics, you know it isn't in me, Lady Mary. I shall
never get no further than the churchyard; but I likes to sit on the wall
hard by Wordsworth's tomb in a warm afternoon, and to see the folks pass
over the bridge; and I can potter about looking after my flowers, I can.
But it would be a dull life, now the poor old missus is gone and the
bairns all out at service, if it wasn't for some one dropping in to have
a chat, or read me a bit of the news sometimes. And there isn't anybody
in Grasmere, gentle or simple, that's kinder to me than you, Lady Mary.
Lord bless you, I do look forward to my newspaper. Any more of them
dreadful smashes?'

'No, Sam, thank Heaven, there have been no railway accidents.'

'Ah, we shall have 'em in August and September,' said the old man,
cheerily. 'They're bound to come then. There's a time for all things,
as Solomon says. When the season comes t'smashes all coom. And no more
of these mysterious murders, I suppose, which baffle t'police and keep