mething to be
on the road again for one who had been belated, lost, and wandering over
the downs for the last six hours.

'Walcome to git in, when young woman gits out,' said the waggoner. 'I'll
gi' ye my sleep on t' Hillford.'

'Thanks, worthy friend,' returned the new comer. 'The state of the case
is this--I'm happy to take from humankind whatsoever I can get. If this
gentleman will accept of my company, and my legs hold out, all will yet
be well.'

Though he did not wear a petticoat, Evan was not sorry to have him. Next
to the interposition of the Gods, we pray for human fellowship when we
are in a mess. So he mumbled politely, dropped with him a little to the
rear, and they all stepped out to the crack of the waggoner's whip.

'Rather a slow pace,' said Evan, feeling bound to converse.

'Six hours on the downs makes it extremely suitable to me,' rejoined the
stranger.

'You lost your way?'

'I did, sir. Yes; one does not court those desolate regions wittingly.
I am for life and society. The embraces of Diana do not agree with my
constitution. If classics there be who differ from me, I beg them to
take six hours on the downs alone with the moon, and the last prospect
of bread and cheese, and a chaste bed, seemingly utterly extinguished. I
am cured of my romance. Of course, when I say bread and cheese, I speak
figuratively. Food is implied.'

Evan stole a glance at his companion.

'Besides,' the other continued, with an inflexion of grandeur, 'for a
man accustomed to his hunters, it is, you will confess, unpleasant--I
speak' hypothetically--to be reduced to his legs to that extent that it
strikes him shrewdly he will run them into stumps.'

The stranger laughed.

The fair lady of the night illumined his face, like one who recognized
a subject. Evan thought he knew the voice. A curious struggle therein
between native facetiousness and an attempt at dignity, appeared to Evan
not unfamiliar; and the egregious failure of ambition and triumph of the
instinct, helped him to join, the stranger in his mirth.

'Jack Raikes?' he said: 'surely?'

'The man!' it was answered to him. 'But you? and near our old
school--Viscount Harrington? These marvels occur, you see--we meet again
by night.'

Evan, with little gratification at the meeting, fell into their former
comradeship; tickled by a recollection of his old schoolfellow's
India-rubber mind.

Mr. Raikes stood about a head under him. He had extremely mobile