uncle, you'll lose your time by going to the Court just now. Sir Michael
and my lady and Miss Alicia have all gone to the races up at Chorley,
and they won't be back till nigh upon eight o'clock, most likely. They
must pass by here to go home."

Under these circumstances of course it was no use going to the Court, so
the two young men strolled through the village and looked at the old
church, and then went and reconnoitered the streams in which they were
to fish the next day, and by such means beguiled the time until after
seven o'clock. At about a quarter past that hour they returned to the
inn, and seating themselves in the open window, lit their cigars and
looked out at the peaceful prospect.

We hear every day of murders committed in the country. Brutal and
treacherous murders; slow, protracted agonies from poisons administered
by some kindred hand; sudden and violent deaths by cruel blows,
inflicted with a stake cut from some spreading oak, whose every shadow
promised--peace. In the county of which I write, I have been shown a
meadow in which, on a quiet summer Sunday evening, a young farmer
murdered the girl who had loved and trusted him; and yet, even now, with
the stain of that foul deed upon it, the aspect of the spot is--peace.
No species of crime has ever been committed in the worst rookeries about
Seven Dials that has not been also done in the face of that rustic calm
which still, in spite of all, we look on with a tender, half-mournful
yearning, and associate with--peace.

It was dusk when gigs and chaises, dog-carts and clumsy farmers'
phaetons, began to rattle through the village street, and under the
windows of the Sun Inn; deeper dusk still when an open carriage and four
drew suddenly up beneath the rocking sign-post.