serving as a guide. Which way were you going when you turned
aside to look at this dismantled shrine?"

"To Canterbury," I answered, "to find a night's, or a
month's, lodging at the inn. My journey is a ramble, it has
neither terminus nor time-table."

"Then let me commend to you something vastly better than
the tender mercies of the Canterbury Inn. Come with me to the
school on Hilltop, where I am a teacher. It is a thousand
feet above the village--purer air, finer view, and pleasanter
company. There is plenty of room in the house, for it is
vacation-time. Master Isaac Ward is always glad to entertain
guests."

There was something so sudden and unconventional about the
invitation that I was reluctant to accept it; but he gave it
naturally and pressed it with earnest courtesy, assuring me
that it was in accordance with Master Ward's custom, that he
would be much disappointed to lose the chance of talking with
an interesting traveller, that he would far rather let me pay
him for my lodging than have me go by, and so on--so that at
last I consented.

Three minutes' walking from the deserted clearing brought
us into a travelled road. It circled the breast of the
mountain, and as we stepped along it in the dusk I learned
something of my companion. His name was Edward Keene; he
taught Latin and Greek in the Hilltop School; he had studied for
the ministry, but had given it up, I gathered, on account of a