sation with them; but as I did so they would
break and hasten down the road. Only the village constable came on, and
he walked by my side and listened while I told him the history of Hunyadi
Janos and the events which occurred during the wars between that hero,
known also as Corvinus or the crow-like, and Mahommed the second, he who
captured Constantinople, better known as Byzantium, before the Christian
epoch. Together with the constable I entered the station, and seating
myself in a carriage I took paper from my pocket and I began to write
upon the paper all that had occurred to me, in order that I might show
that it was not easy in these days to follow the example of the master.
As I wrote, I heard the constable talk to the station-master, a stout,
middle-sized man with a red neck-tie, and tell him of my own adventures
in the old English village of Swinehurst.

"He is a gentleman too," said the constable, "and I doubt not that he
lives in a big house in London town."

"A very big house if every man had his rights," said the station-master,
and waving his hand he signalled that the train should proceed.

VII. THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL

I--HOW THE WOMAN CAME TO KIRKBY-MALHOUSE

Bleak and wind-swept is the little town of Kirkby-Malhouse, harsh and
forbidding are the fells upon which it stands. It stretches in a single
line of grey-stone, slate-roofed houses, dotted down the furze-clad slope
of the rolling moor.

In this lonely and secluded village, I, James Upperton, found myself in
the summer of '85. Little as the hamlet had to offer, it contained that
for which I yearned above all things--seclusion and freedom from all
which might distract my mind from the high and weighty subjects which
engaged it. But the inquisitiveness of my landlady made my lodgings
undesirable and I determined to seek new quarters.

As it chanced, I had in one of my rambles come upon an isolated dwelling
in the very heart of these lonely moors, which I at once determined
should be my own. It was a two-roomed cottage, which had once belonged
to some shepherd, but had long been deserted, and was crumbling rapidly
to ruin. In the winter floods, the Gaster Beck, which runs down Gaster
Fell, where the little dwelling stood, had overswept its banks and torn
away a part of the wall. The roof was in ill case, and the scattered
slates lay thick amongst the grass. Yet the main shell of the house
stood firm and true; and it was