side of the slope opposite to that trodden by Lady Constantine, and
crossed the field in a line mathematically straight, and in a manner
that left no traces, by keeping in the same furrow all the way on
tiptoe. In a few minutes he reached a little dell, which occurred
quite unexpectedly on the other side of the field-fence, and
descended to a venerable thatched house, whose enormous roof, broken
up by dormers as big as haycocks, could be seen even in the
twilight. Over the white walls, built of chalk in the lump,
outlines of creepers formed dark patterns, as if drawn in charcoal.

Inside the house his maternal grandmother was sitting by a wood
fire. Before it stood a pipkin, in which something was evidently
kept warm. An eight-legged oak table in the middle of the room was
laid for a meal. This woman of eighty, in a large mob cap, under
which she wore a little cap to keep the other clean, retained
faculties but little blunted. She was gazing into the flames, with
her hands upon her knees, quietly re-enacting in her brain certain
of the long chain of episodes, pathetic, tragical, and humorous,
which had constituted the parish history for the last sixty years.
On Swithin's entry she looked up at him in a sideway direction.

'You should not have waited for me, granny,' he said.

''Tis of no account, my child. I've had a nap while sitting here.
Yes, I've had a nap, and went straight up into my old country again,
as usual. The place was as natural as when I left it,--e'en just
threescore years ago! All the folks and my old aunt were there, as
when I was a child,--yet I suppose if I were really to set out and
go there, hardly a soul would be left alive to say to me, dog how
art! But tell Hannah to stir her stumps and serve supper--though