"Ho, ho! Alley, so you are come to your senses," said he, with a kind of
joyless grin. "I am glad of it, for I can have no fainting fine ladies
with me. You have had a long holiday, Alley; you must now learn once
more to work for your poor father. Ah, you have been d----d sly; but
never mind the past--I forgive it. You must not run away again without
my leave; if you are fond of sweethearts, I won't balk you--but your old
father must go shares, Alley."

Alice could hear no more: she covered her face with the cloak that had
been thrown about her, and though she did not faint, her senses seemed
to be locked and paralysed. By and by Walters woke, and the two men,
heedless of her presence, conversed upon their plans. By degrees she
recovered sufficient self-possession to listen, in the instinctive hope
that some plan of escape might be suggested to her. But from what she
could gather of the incoherent and various projects they discussed, one
after another--disputing upon each with frightful oaths and scarce
intelligible slang, she could only learn that it was resolved at all
events to leave the district in which they were--but whither seemed yet
all undecided. The cart halted at last at a miserable-looking hut,
which the signpost announced to be an inn that afforded good
accommodation to travellers; to which announcement was annexed the
following epigrammatic distich:

"Old Tom, he is the best of gin;
Drink him once, and you'll drink him /agin/!"

The hovel stood so remote from all other habitations, and the waste
around was so bare of trees, and even shrubs, that Alice saw with
despair that all hope of flight in such a place would be indeed a
chimera. But to make assurance doubly sure, Darvil himself, lifting her