"

"The smallest trifle," interrupted the Hag, with her habitual solemnity
of aspect.

Losely, who, in his small way, had all the liberality of a Catiline,
"_alieni appetens, sui profusus_," drew forth the few silver coins yet
remaining to him; and though he must have calculated that, after paying
his bill, there could scarcely be three shillings left, he chucked two
of them towards the Hag, who, clutching them with a profound curtsey,
then handed them to the fallen monarch by her side, with a loyal tear
and a quick sob that might have touched the most cynical republican.

In a few minutes more, Losely was again on horseback; and as he rode
towards Ouzelford, Rugge and his dusty Faithful shambled on in the
opposite direction--shambled on, footsore and limping, along the wide,
waste, wintry thoroughfare--vanishing from the eye, as their fates
henceforth from this story. There they go by the white hard milestone;
farther on, by the trunk of the hedgerow-tree, which lies lopped and
leafless--cumbering the wayside, till the time come to cast it off to
the thronged, dull stackyard. Farther yet, where the ditch widens into
yon stagnant pool, with the great dung-heap by its side. There the road
turns aslant; the dung-heap hides them. Gone! and not a speck on the
Immemorial, Universal Thoroughfare.

CHAPTER V.

NO WIND SO CUTTING AS THAT WHICH SETS IN THE QUARTER FROM WHICH THE
SUN RISES.

The town to which I lend the disguising name of Ouzelford, which, in
years bygone, was represented by Guy Darrell, and which, in years to
come, may preserve in its municipal hall his effigies in canvas or
stone, is one of the handsomest in England. As you approach its suburbs
from the London Road, it rises clear and wide upon your eye, crowning
the elevated table-land upon which it is built;--a noble range of
prospect on either side, rich with hedgerows not yet sacrificed to the
stern demands of modern agriculture--venerable woodlands, and the green
pastures round many a rural thane's frank, hospitable hall;--no one
Great House banishing from leagues of landscape the abodes of knight and
squire, nor menacing, with "the legitimate influence of property," the
votes of rebellious burghers. Everywhere, like finger-posts to heaven,
you may perceive the church-towers of rural hamlets embosomed in
pleasant valleys, or climbing up gentle slopes. At the horizon, the blue
fantastic outline of girdling hills mingles with the clouds. A