hardly be possible in this place. As for wine, I can give you some much
better than you can get here: the landlord is an excellent fellow, but he
is an innkeeper after all. I am going out for a moment, and will send
him in, so that you may settle your account; I trust you will not refuse
me, I only live about two miles from here."

I looked in the face of the stranger--it was a fine intelligent face,
with a cast of melancholy in it. "Sir," said I, "I would go with you
though you lived four miles instead of two."

"Who is that gentleman?" said I to the landlord, after I had settled his
bill; "I am going home with him."

"I wish I were going too," said the fat landlord, laying his hand upon
his stomach. "Young gentleman, I shall be a loser by his honour's taking
you away; but, after all, the truth is the truth--there are few gentlemen
in these parts like his honour, either for learning or welcoming his
friends. Young gentleman, I congratulate you." {88}

CHAPTER LXIV

New Acquaintance--Old French Style--The Portrait--Taciturnity--The
Evergreen Tree--The Dark Hour--The Flash--Ancestors--A Fortunate Man--A
Posthumous Child--Antagonist Ideas--The Hawks--Flaws--The
Pony--Irresistible Impulse--Favourable Crisis--The Topmost Branch--Twenty
Feet--Heartily Ashamed.

I found the stranger awaiting me at the door of the inn. "Like yourself,
I am fond of walking," said he, "and when any little business calls me to
this place I generally come on foot."

We were soon out of the town, and in a very beautiful country. After
proceeding some distance on the high road, we turned off, and were
presently in one of those mazes of lanes for which England is famous; the
stranger at first seemed inclined to be taciturn; a few observations,
however, which I made appeared to rouse him, and he soon exhibited not
only considerable powers of conversation, but stores of information which
surprised me. So pleased did I become with my new acquaintance, that I
soon ceased to pay the slightest attention either to place or distance.
At length the stranger was silent, and I perceived that we had arrived at
a handsome iron gate and a lodge; the stranger having rung a bell, the
gate was opened by an old man, and we proceeded along a gravel path,
which in about five minutes brought us to a large brick house, built
something in the old French style, having a spacious lawn before it, and
immediately in front a pond in which were golden fish