CHAPTER VI.

CREDULOUS CRYSTAL-SEERS, YOUNG LOVERS, AND GRAVE WISE MEN--ALL IN
THE SAME CATEGORY.

George Morley set out the next day for Norwich, in which antique city,
ever since the 'Dane peopled it, some wizard or witch, star-reader, or
crystal-seer' has enjoyed a mysterious renown, perpetuating thus through
all change in our land's social progress the long line of Vala and Saga,
who came with the Raven and Valkyr from Scandinavian pine shores.
Merle's reserve vanished on the perusal of Sophy's letter to him. He
informed George that Waife declared he had plenty of money, and had even
forced a loan upon Merle; but that he liked an active, wandering life;
it kept him from thinking, and that a pedlar's pack would give him a
license for vagrancy, and a budget to defray its expenses; that Merle had
been consulted by him in the choice of light popular wares, and as to the
route he might find the most free from competing rivals. Merle willingly
agreed to accompany George in quest of the wanderer, whom, by the help of
his crystal, he seemed calmly sure he could track and discover.
Accordingly, they both set out in the somewhat devious and desultory road
which Merle, who had some old acquaintances amongst the ancient
profession of hawkers, had advised Waife to take. But Merle, unhappily
confiding more in his crystal than Waife's steady adherence to the chart
prescribed, led the Oxford scholar the life of a will-of-the-wisp;
zigzag, and shooting to and fro, here and there, till, just when George
had lost all patience, Merle chanced to see, not in the crystal, a
pelerine on the neck of a farmer's daughter, which he was morally certain