The neighbourhood was now tranquil and at peace; the nightly depredators that had infested the green valleys of Grassdale were heard of no more; it seemed a sudden incursion of fraud and crime, which was too unnatural to the character of the spot invaded to do more than to terrify and to disappear. The truditur dies die; the serene steps of one calm day chasing another returned, and the past alarm was only remembered as a tempting subject of gossip to the villagers, and (at the Hall) a theme of eulogium on the courage of Eugene Aram. "It is a lovely day," said Lester to his daughters, as they sate at the window; "come, girls, get your bonnets, and let us take a walk into the village." "And meet the postman," said Ellinor, archly. "Yes," rejoined Madeline in the same vein, but in a whisper that Lester might not hear, "for who knows but that we may have a letter from Walter?" How prettily sounds such raillery on virgin lips. No, no; nothing on earth is so lovely as the confidence between two happy sisters, who have no secrets but those of a guileless love to reveal! As they strolled into the village, they were met by Peter Dealtry, who was slowly riding home on a large ass which carried himself and his panniers to the neighbouring market in a more quiet and luxurious indolence of action than would the harsher motions of the equine species. "A fine day, Peter: and what news at market?" said Lester. "Corn high,--hay dear, your honour," replied the clerk. "Ah, I suppose so; a good time to sell ours, Peter;--we must see about it on Saturday. But, pray, have you heard any thing from the Corporal since his departure?" "Not I, your honour, not I; though I think as he might have given us a line, if it was only to thank me for my care of his cat, but-- 'Them as comes to go to roam, Thinks slight of they as stays at home.'" "A notable distich, Peter; your own composition, I warrant." "Mine! Lord love your honour, I has no genus, but I has memory; and when them ere beautiful lines of poetry-like comes into my head, they stays there, and stays till they pops out at my tongue like a bottle of ginger- beer. I do loves poetry, Sir, 'specially the sacred." "We know it,--we know it." "For there be summut in it," continued the clerk, "which smooths a man's heart like a clothes-brush, wipes away the dust and dirt, and sets all the nap right; and I thinks as how 'tis what a clerk of the parish ought to study, your honour." "Nothing better; you speak like an oracle." "Now, Sir, there be the Corporal, honest man, what thinks himself mighty clever,--but he has no soul for varse. Lord love ye, to see the faces he makes when I tells him a hymn or so; 'tis quite wicked, your honour,--for that's what the heathen did, as you well know, Sir. "'And when I does discourse of things Most holy, to their tribe; What does they do?--they mocks at me, And makes my harp a gibe.'