From this I perceived that my host was as full of his speculative schemes as ever; and soon he made the driver of the one-horse fly turn aside from the unfenced road and take the turf. “Coachman,” he cried, “just drive along the railway; you won't have the chance much longer.” There was no sod turned yet and no rod set up; but the driver seemed to know what was meant, and took us over the springy turf where once had run the river. And the salt breath of the sea came over the pebble ridge, full of appetite and briskness, after so much London. “It is one of the saddest things I ever heard of,” Major Hockin began to say to me. “Poor Shovelin! poor Shovelin! A man of large capital--the very thing we want. It might have been the making of this place. I have very little doubt that I must have brought him to see our great natural advantages--the beauty of the situation, the salubrity of the air, the absence of all clay, or marsh, or noxious deposit, the bright crisp turf, and the noble underlay of chalk, which (if you perceive my meaning) can not retain any damp, but transmits it into sweet natural wells. Why, driver, where the devil are you driving us?” “No fear, your honor. I know every trick of it. It won't come over the wheels, I do believe, and it does all the good in the world to his sand-cracks. Whoa-ho, my boy, then! And the young lady's feet might go up upon the cushion, if her boots is thin, Sir; and Mr. Rasper will excuse of it.” “What the”--something hot--“do you mean, Sir?” the Major roared over the water, which seemed to be deepening as we went on. “Pull out this instant; pull out, I tell you, or you shall have three months' hard labor. May I be d----d now--my dear, I beg your pardon for speaking with such sincerity--I simply mean, may I go straightway to the devil, if I don't put this fellow on the tread-mill. Oh, you can pull out now, then, can you?” “If your honor pleases, I never did pull in,” the poor driver answered, being frightened at the excitement of the lord of the manor. “My orders was, miss, to drive along the line coming on now just to Bruntsea, and keep in the middle of that same I did, and this here little wet is a haxident--a haxident of the full moon, I do assure you, and the wind coming over the sea, as you might say. These pebbles is too round, miss, to stick to one another; you couldn't expect it of them; and sometimes the water here and there comes a-leaking like through the bottom. I have seed it so, ever since I can remember.” “I don't believe a word of it,” the Major said, as we waited a little for the vehicle to drain, and I made a nosegay of the bright sea flowers. “Tell me no lies, Sir; you belong to the West Bruntseyans, and you have driven us into a vile bog to scare me. They have bribed you. I see the whole of it. Tell me the truth, and you shall have five shillings.”