"Well, Cripps, I have done that, I confess. I have longed to see over the top of the hill; and Heaven only knows where that top is! But as sure as we sit here and drink this glass of punch to your sister's health, and to yours, good Carrier, so surely shall our dear old friend receive the reward of his faith and courage; whether in this world or the next!" "Thank 'ee kindly, sir. Etty, is that the best sort of curtsy they teaches now? Now, don't blush, child, but make a betterer. But as to what your Worship was a-saying of, I virtually hopes a may come to pass in this world we be living in. Otherwise, maybe, us never may know on it, the kingdom of Heaven being such a size." "Cripps, I believe it will be in this world. And I hope that I am on the straight road now towards making out some part of it. You have told your sister all I told you at Brasenose this morning according to my directions? Very well, then; I may begin again at the point where I left off with you. Where did I break it? I almost forget." "With the man's big thumb in the mouth of the cheeld, while you was a-looking at him, sir; and the wind and the rain blowing furious." "Ah yes, I remember; and so they were. I thought that the crest of the hedge would fall over, and bury the whole of us out of the way. And when the poor boy had kicked out his convulsions, and fallen into a senseless sleep, the rough man turned on me savagely, as if I could have prevented it. 'A pretty doctor you be!' he exclaimed. But I took the upper hand of him. 'Stand back there!' I said; and I lifted the child (expecting him to strike me all the while), and placed the poor little fellow on my horse, and managed to get up into my saddle before the wind blew him off again. 'Now lead the way to your home,' I said. And muttering something, he set off. "He strode along at such a pace that, having to manage both child and horse, it was all I could do to keep up with him. But I kept him in sight till he came to a common, and there he struck sharply away to the right. By the light of the wind and the rain, and a star that twinkled where the storm was lifting, I followed him, perhaps for half a mile, through a narrow track, in and out furze and bramble. At last he turned suddenly round a corner, and a shadow fell behind him--his own shadow thrown by a gusty gleam of fire. Cantelupe--that is my horse, Miss Esther--has not learned to stand fire yet, and he shied at the light, and set off through the furze, as if with the hounds in full cry before him. We were very lucky not to break our necks, going headlong in the dark among rabbit-holes. I thought that I must have dropped the child, as the best thing to be done for him; but the shaking revived him, and he clung to me.