to my dismay that the priest's house was closed for the night. To rouse
the reverend personage from his slumbers, and endeavour to explain to
him with my limited vocabulary the object of my visit, was not to be
thought of. On the other hand, there was no inn of any kind in the
vicinity. When I consulted the driver as to what was to be done, he
meditated for a little, and then pointed to a large house at some
distance where there were still lights. It turned out to be the
country-house of the gentleman who had advised me to undertake the
journey, and here, after a short explanation, though the owner was not
at home, I was hospitably received.

It had been my intention to live in the priest's house, but a short
interview with him on the following day convinced me that that part
of my plan could not be carried out. The preliminary objections that I
should find but poor fare in his humble household, and much more of
the same kind, were at once put aside by my assurance, made partly by
pantomime, that, as an old traveller, I was well accustomed to simple
fare, and could always accommodate myself to the habits of people
among whom my lot happened to be cast. But there was a more serious
difficulty. The priest's family had, as is generally the case with
priests' families, been rapidly increasing during the last few years,
and his house had not been growing with equal rapidity. The natural
consequence of this was that he had not a room or a bed to spare. The
little room which he had formerly kept for occasional visitors was now
occupied by his eldest daughter, who had returned from a "school for
the daughters of the clergy," where she had been for the last two years.
Under these circumstances, I was constrained to accept the kind proposal
made to me by the representative of my absent friend, that I should
take up my quarters in one of the numerous unoccupied rooms in the
manor-house. This arrangement, I was reminded, would not at all