self in words; listening,
he stood by the fire, mechanically stirring the embers with a spar-gad.

"You'll be, then, ready, Giles?" Melbury continued, awaking from a
reverie. "Well, what was the latest news at Shottsford yesterday, Mr.
Bawtree?"

"Well, Shottsford is Shottsford still--you can't victual your carcass
there unless you've got money; and you can't buy a cup of genuine
there, whether or no....But as the saying is, 'Go abroad and you'll
hear news of home.' It seems that our new neighbor, this young Dr.
What's-his-name, is a strange, deep, perusing gentleman; and there's
good reason for supposing he has sold his soul to the wicked one."

"'Od name it all," murmured the timber-merchant, unimpressed by the
news, but reminded of other things by the subject of it; "I've got to
meet a gentleman this very morning? and yet I've planned to go to
Sherton Abbas for the maid."

"I won't praise the doctor's wisdom till I hear what sort of bargain
he's made," said the top-sawyer.

"'Tis only an old woman's tale," said Bawtree. "But it seems that he
wanted certain books on some mysterious science or black-art, and in
order that the people hereabout should not know anything about his dark
readings, he ordered 'em direct from London, and not from the Sherton
book-seller. The parcel was delivered by mistake at the pa'son's, and
he wasn't at home; so his wife opened it, and went into hysterics when
she read 'em, thinking her husband had turned heathen, and 'twould be
the ruin of the children. But when he came he said he knew no more
about 'em than she; and found they were this Mr. Fitzpier's property.
So he wrote 'Beware!' outside, and sent 'em on by the sexton."

"He must be a curious young man," mused the hollow-turner.

"He must," said Timothy Tangs.

"Nonsense," said Mr. Melbury, authoritatively, "he's only a gentleman
fond of science and philosophy and poetry, and, in fact, every kind of
knowledge; and being lonely here, he passes his time in making such
matters his hobby."

"Well," said old Timothy, "'tis a strange thing about doctors that the
worse they be the better they be. I mean that if you hear anything of
this sort about 'em, ten to one they can cure ye as nobody else can."

"True," said Bawtree, emphatically. "And for my part I shall take my
custom from old Jones and go to this one directly I've anything the
matter with me. That last medicine old Jones gave me had no taste in
it at all."

Mr. M