ouse up! That's my
hearty!"

John said these latter words outside the door, whither he had hurried
with the candle in his hand.

Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to The Old
Gentleman, and connecting, in her mystified imagination, certain
associations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so disturbed,
that hastily rising from the low chair by the fire to seek protection
near the skirt of her mistress, and coming into contact, as she crossed
the doorway, with an ancient Stranger, she instinctively made a charge
or butt at him with the only offensive instrument within her reach. This
instrument happening to be the baby, great commotion and alarm ensued,
which the sagacity of Boxer rather tended to increase; for that good
dog, more thoughtful than his master, had, it seemed, been watching the
old gentleman in his sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young
poplar-trees that were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on
him very closely, worrying his gaiters, in fact, and making dead sets at
the buttons.

"You're such an undeniably good sleeper, sir," said John, when
tranquillity was restored (in the meantime the old gentleman had stood,
bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room), "that I have half
a mind to ask you where the other six are--only that would be a joke,
and I know I should spoil it. Very near, though," murmured the Carrier
with a chuckle; "very near!"

The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, singularly bold
and well defined for an old man, and dark, bright, penetrating eyes,
looked round with a smile, and saluted the Carrier's wife by gravely
inclining his head.

His garb was very quaint and odd--a long, long way behind the time. Its
hue was brown, all over. In his hand he held a great brown club or
walking-stick; and, striking this upon the floor, it fell asunder, and
became a chair. On which he sat down quite composedly.

"There!" said the Carrier, turning to his wife. "That's the way I found
him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a milestone. And almost as
deaf."

"Sitting in the open air, John?"

"In the open air," replied the Carrier, "just at dusk. 'Carriage Paid,'
he said; and gave me eighteen-pence. Then he got in. And there he is."

"He's going, John, I think!"

Not at all. He was only going to speak.

"If you please, I was to be left till called for," said the Stranger
mildly. "Don't mind me."

With that he took a pair