aching. Evan
went into the middle of the road, and beheld a covered waggon, and a
fellow whom he advanced to meet, plodding a little to the rear of the
horses. He proved kindly. He was a farmer's man, he said, and was at
that moment employed in removing the furniture of the farmer's son, who
had failed as a corn-chandler in Lymport, to Hillford, which he expected
to reach about morn. He answered Evan's request that he would afford the
young woman conveyance as far as Fallowfield:

'Tak' her in? That I will.

'She won't hurt the harses,' he pursued, pointing his whip at the
vehicle: 'there's my mate, Gearge Stoakes, he's in there, snorin' his
turn. Can't you hear 'n asnorin' thraugh the wheels? I can; I've been
laughin'! He do snore that loud-Gearge do!'

Proceeding to inform Evan how George Stokes had snored in that
characteristic manner from boyhood, ever since he and George had
slept in a hayloft together; and how he, kept wakeful and driven to
distraction by George Stokes' nose, had been occasionally compelled, in
sheer self-defence, madly to start up and hold that pertinacious alarum
in tight compression between thumb and forefinger; and how George
Stokes, thus severely handled, had burst his hold with a tremendous
snort, as big as a bull, and had invariably uttered the exclamation,
'Hulloa!--same to you, my lad!' and rolled over to snore as fresh as
ever;--all this with singular rustic comparisons, racy of the soil,
and in raw Hampshire dialect, the waggoner came to a halt opposite the
stone, and, while Evan strode to assist the girl, addressed himself to
the great task of arousing the sturdy sleeper and quieting his trumpet,
heard by all ears now that the accompaniment of the wheels was at an
end.

George, violently awakened, complained that it was before his time, to
which he was true; and was for going off again with exalted contentment,
though his heels had been tugged, and were dangling some length out of
the machine; but his comrade, with a determined blow of the lungs, gave
another valiant pull, and George Stokes was on his legs, marvelling at
the world and man. Evan had less difficulty with the girl. She rose to
meet him, put up her arms for him to clasp her waist, whispering sharply
in an inward breath: 'What are you going to do with me?' and indifferent
to his verbal response, trustingly yielded her limbs to his guidance.
He could see blood on her bitten underlip; as, with the help of the
waggoner, h