round, the size of a cocked-hat-box,--and that piece, the
size of a cabbage-garden,--and so on, belong to different counties; and
his amusement may derive additional zest if he be fortunate enough to
find the same tollman there whom I met some years ago. When passing his
toll in a driving snow-storm that penetrated even to the very marrow, I
pulled up a few yards beyond the gate, upon which he came out very
sulkily, took the half-crown I tendered him, and, walking deliberately
back, placed the change on the post of the gate, and said,--"If ye want
'ut, ye may take 'ut; it's no my place to walk half a mile o' the road
to gie folk their change;" after which courteous address he disappeared,
banging his door to with a sound that fell on the ear very like "Put
that in your pipe and smoke it." Precious work I had, with a heavy
dog-cart, no servant, and a hack whose mouth was case-hardened. I would
willingly have given it up; but I knew the brute (the man, not the
horse) would very soon have got drunk upon it; so I persevered until I
succeeded, and then went on my road full of thoughts which are, I fear,
totally unfit to be committed to paper.

Reader, I must ask you to forgive my wanderings on the banks of the
Forth. I hasten back to Geneseo, and pack up ready for to-morrow's
start, for the days I had spent with my kind host and his merry family
had slipped by so pleasantly I had quite lost count of them. There was
but one cloud to our enjoyment--one sad blank in the family group: my
sister-in-law, in whose charming society I had fondly hoped to make my
first visit to the scenes of her early youth, had been recently summoned
to a better world; and the void her absence made in that family circle,
of which she was both the radiating and the centring point of affection,
was too deeply felt for aught but time ever to eradicate.

CHAPTER VI.

_Stirring Scenes and Strange Sights_.

My host having kindly lent me his carriage and a pair of wiry nags, I
started for Batavia to meet the railway. The distance was about thirty
miles, and the road in many places execrable--in one part so bad that we
had to go through a quarter of a mile of wood, as it was absolutely
impassable;--yet, despite all these hindrances, and without pressing the
horses in the least, we completed the distance in the three hours,
including from five to ten minutes at a half-way house, where we gave
them the usual American bait of a bucket of cold water;