turned her benediction with a
mute caress. They then tore themselves asunder, and Janet, addressing
Wayland, exclaimed, "May Heaven deal with you at your need, as you are
true or false to this most injured and most helpless lady!"

"Amen! dearest Janet," replied Wayland; "and believe me, I will so
acquit myself of my trust as may tempt even your pretty eyes, saintlike
as they are, to look less scornfully on me when we next meet."

The latter part of this adieu was whispered into Janet's ear and
although she made no reply to it directly, yet her manner, influenced,
no doubt, by her desire to leave every motive in force which could
operate towards her mistress's safety, did not discourage the hope which
Wayland's words expressed. She re-entered the postern door, and locked
it behind her; while, Wayland taking the horse's bridle in his hand,
and walking close by its head, they began in silence their dubious and
moonlight journey.

Although Wayland Smith used the utmost dispatch which he could make,
yet this mode of travelling was so slow, that when morning began to dawn
through the eastern mist, he found himself no farther than about ten
miles distant from Cumnor. "Now, a plague upon all smooth-spoken
hosts!" said Wayland, unable longer to suppress his mortification and
uneasiness. "Had the false loon, Giles Gosling, but told me plainly two
days since that I was to reckon nought upon him, I had shifted better
for myself. But your hosts have such a custom of promising whatever is
called for that it is not till the steed is to be shod you find they are
out of iron. Had I but known, I could have made twenty shifts; nay, for
that matter, and in so good a cause, I would have thought little to have
prigged a prancer from the next common--it had but been sending back
the brute to the headborough. The farcy and the founders confound every
horse in the stables of the Black Bear!"

The lady endeavoured to comfort her guide, observing that the dawn would
enable him to make more speed.

"True, madam," he replied; "but then it will enable other folk to take
note of us, and that may prove an ill beginning of our journey. I
had not cared a spark from anvil about the matter had we been further
advanced on our way. But this Berkshire has been notoriously haunted,
ever since I knew the country, with that sort of malicious elves who
sit up late and rise early for no other purpose than to pry into other
folk's affairs. I have been endang