the foot of a broad-limbed oak, and they remained in converse there for
upward of an hour.

In fact, it must been several hours later (for the sun was high in the
heavens) when one of them issued from the wood. He was mounted on a
black horse, and wore a blue surtout and high boots. After looking up
and down the road, and assuring himself that no one was in sight, he
turned his horse's head toward London, and set off at a round canter.
Coming to a cross-road, he turned to the right, and rode for an hour in
that direction, crossing the Thames near Hampton Wick. In the afternoon
he entered London from the south, and put up at an obscure hostelry.
Having seen his horse attended to, and eaten something himself, he went
to bed and slept soundly for eighteen hours. On awaking, he ate
heartily again, and spent the rest of the day in writing and arranging
a quantity of documents that were packed in his saddle-bags. The next
morning early he paid his reckoning, rode across London Bridge, and
shaped his course toward the west.

Meanwhile the town of Witton was in vast perturbation. When Mr. Harwood
Courtney woke up late in the afternoon, and came yawning down-stairs to
get his breakfast, he learned, in answer to his inquiries, that nothing
had been seen of David Poindexter since he rode away thirteen hours
ago. Mr. Courtney expressed anxiety at this news, and dispatched his
own valet and one of David's grooms to make investigations in the
neighborhood. These two personages investigated to such good purpose
that before night the whole neighborhood was aware that David
Poindexter had disappeared. By the next morning it became evident that
something had happened to the Wicked Parson, and some people ventured
to opine that the thing which had happened to him was that he had run
away. And indeed it was astonishing to find to how many worthy people