ankle, and in a corner of the little covered carriage that started
with them for Wigton--a most desirable carriage for any country,
except for its having a flat roof and no sides; which caused the
plumps of rain accumulating on the roof to play vigorous games of
bagatelle into the interior all the way, and to score immensely.
It was comfortable to see how the people coming back in open carts
from Wigton market made no more of the rain than if it were
sunshine; how the Wigton policeman taking a country walk of half-a-
dozen miles (apparently for pleasure), in resplendent uniform,
accepted saturation as his normal state; how clerks and
schoolmasters in black, loitered along the road without umbrellas,
getting varnished at every step; how the Cumberland girls, coming
out to look after the Cumberland cows, shook the rain from their
eyelashes and laughed it away; and how the rain continued to fall
upon all, as it only does fall in hill countries.

Wigton market was over, and its bare booths were smoking with rain
all down the street. Mr. Thomas Idle, melodramatically carried to
the inn's first floor, and laid upon three chairs (he should have
had the sofa, if there had been one), Mr. Goodchild went to the
window to take an observation of Wigton, and report what he saw to
his disabled companion.

'Brother Francis, brother Francis,' cried Thomas Idle, 'What do you
see from the turret?'

'I see,' said Brother Francis, 'what I hope and believe to be one
of the most dismal places ever seen by eyes. I see the houses with
their roofs of dull black, their stained fronts, and their dark-
rimmed windows, looking as if they were all in mourning. As every