no shop; no post-office; not even a public - house."

I inquired in which direction lay the hall. She pointed to the
nearest trees, a small forest of stunted oaks, which shut in the
view to the right, after quarter of a mile of a bare and rugged
valley. Through this valley twisted the beck which I had heard
faintly in the night. It ran through the oak plantation and so to
the sea, some two or three miles further on, said my landlady; but
nobody would have thought it was so near.

"T'squire was to be away to-day," observed the woman, with the
broad vowel sound which I shall not attempt to reproduce in print.
"He was going to Lancaster, I believe."

"So I understood," said I. "I didn't think of troubling him, if
that's what you mean. I'm going to take his advice and fish the
beck."

And I proceeded to do so after a hearty early dinner: the keen,
chill air was doing me good already: the "perfect quiet" was finding
its way into my soul. I blessed my specialist, I blessed Squire
Rattray, I blessed the very villains who had brought us within each
other's ken; and nowhere was my thanksgiving more fervent than in
the deep cleft threaded by the beck; for here the shrewd yet gentle
wind passed completely overhead, and the silence was purged of
oppression by the ceaseless symphony of clear water running over
clean stones.

But it was no day for fishing, and no place for the fly, though I
went through the form of throwing one for several hours. Here the