was due to his clients first.

After a long brown-study he reaped his crop of meditation thus: "It is a
ticklish job; and I will sleep three nights upon it."



CHAPTER IV

DISQUIETUDE


The ladies of Scargate Hall were uneasy, although the weather was so
fine, upon this day of early August, in the year now current. It was a
remarkable fact, that in spite of the distance they slept asunder, which
could not be less than five-and-thirty yards, both had been visited by
a dream, which appeared to be quite the same dream until examined
narrowly, and being examined, grew more surprising in its points of
difference. They were much above paying any heed to dreams, though
instructed by the patriarchs to do so; and they seemed to be quite
getting over the effects, when the lesson and the punishment astonished
them.

Lately it had been established (although many leading people went
against it, and threatened to prosecute the man for trespass) that here
in these quiet and reputable places, where no spy could be needed, a man
should come twice every week with letters, and in the name of the
king be paid for them. Such things were required in towns, perhaps, as
corporations and gutters were; but to bring them where people could mind
their own business, and charge them two groats for some fool who knew