leaving old Peter gaping after them at the gate, in profound astonishment at their sudden metamorphosis, and in utter despair of being able, by any exertions of his own, to be their forerunner and announcer at Melincourt. Considering, therefore, that when the necessity of being too late is inevitable, hurry is manifestly superfluous, he mounted his galloway with great gravity and deliberation, and trotted slowly off towards the mountains, philosophising all the way in the usual poetical style of a Cumberland peasant. Our readers will of course feel much obliged to us for not presenting them with his meditations. But instead of jogging back with old Peter Gray, or travelling post with Humphrey Hippy, Esquire, we shall avail ourselves of the four-in-hand barouche which is just coming in view, to take a seat on the box by the side of Sir Telegraph Paxarett, and proceed in his company to Melincourt. [Illustration: _Sprang up, flung his night-gown one way, his night-cap another._] CHAPTER IV REDROSE ABBEY Sir Telegraph Paxarett had entered the precincts of the mountains of Westmoreland, and was bowling his barouche along a romantic valley, looking out very anxiously for an inn, as he had now driven his regular diurnal allowance of miles, and was becoming very impatient for his equally regular diurnal allowance of fish, fowl, and Madeira. A wreath of smoke ascending from a thick tuft of trees at a distance, and in a straight direction before him, cheered up his spirits, and induced him to cheer up those of his horses with two or three of those technical terms of the road, which we presume to have formed part of the genuine language of the ancient Houyhnhnms, since they seem not only much better adapted to equine than human organs of sound, but are certainly much more generally intelligible to four-footed than to two-footed animals. Sir Telegraph was doomed to a temporary disappointment; for when he had attained the desired point, the smoke proved to issue from the chimneys of an ancient abbey which appeared to have been recently converted from a pile of ruins into the habitation of some variety of the human species, with very singular veneration for the relics of antiquity, which, in their exterior aspect, had suffered little from the alteration. There was something so analogous between the state of this building and what he had heard of Melincourt, that if it had not been impossible to mistake an abbey for a castle, he might almost have fancied himself arrived at the dwelling of the divine Anthelia. Under a detached piece of ruins near the road, which appeared to have been part of a chapel, several workmen were busily breaking the ground with spade and pickaxe: a gentleman was superintending their operations, and seemed very eager to arrive at the object of his search. Sir Telegraph stopped his barouche to inquire the distance to the nearest inn: the gentleman