he avowed enemy of law and order, of justices
of the peace, head-boroughs, and gamekeepers,--such a man, in fact, as
was recently caught tripping, and deservedly dealt with by the Leeds
justices, for seducing a girl who had come to him to get back a
faithless lover, and has been convicted of bigamy since then. Sometimes,
however, they are of quite a different stamp--men who pretend to
nothing, and are with difficulty persuaded to exercise their occult arts
in the simplest cases.

Of this latter sort was old Farmer Ives, as he was called, the "wise
man" to whom Benjy resorted (taking Tom with him as usual), in the early
spring of the year next after the feast described in the last chapter.
Why he was called "farmer" I cannot say, unless it be that he was the
owner of a cow, a pig or two, and some poultry, which he maintained
on about an acre of land inclosed from the middle of a wild common, on
which probably his father had squatted before lords of manors looked as
keenly after their rights as they do now. Here he had lived no one knew
how long, a solitary man. It was often rumoured that he was to be turned
out and his cottage pulled down, but somehow it never came to pass; and
his pigs and cow went grazing on the common, and his geese hissed at the
passing children and at the heels of the horse of my lord's steward, who
often rode by with a covetous eye on the inclosure still unmolested. His
dwelling was some miles from our village; so Benjy, who was half ashamed
of his errand, and wholly unable to walk there, had to exercise much
ingenuity to get the means of transporting himself and Tom thither
without exciting suspicion. However, one fine May morning he managed to
borrow the old blind pony of our friend the publican, and Tom persuaded
Madam Brown to give him a holiday to spend with old Benjy, and to lend
them the Squire's light cart, stored with bread and cold meat and a
bottle of ale. And so the two in high glee started behind old Dobbin,
and jogged along the deep-rutted plashy roads, which had not been mended
after their winter's wear, towards the dwelling of the wizard. About
noon they passed the gate which opened on to the large common, and old
Dobbin toiled slowly up the hill, while Benjy pointed out a little deep
dingle on the left, out of which welled a tiny stream. As they crept
up the hill the tops of a few birch-trees came in sight, and blue smoke
curling up through their delicate light boughs; and then the