stopped in London a sufficient time to pack up his scanty wardrobe, then started off again on foot once more, as we have seen. Disgusted with the Turf, as with all else he had recently had to do with, he was now more than ever bent upon leading a new life--not, indeed, in a penitential sense (although some are so audacious as to aver that it _is_ a kind of mortification), but, in other words, to marry. Mistress Forest was as fond of him, he thought, and with some justice, as any woman was ever likely to be; and he was resolved not to be balked of her by the machinations of Sir Richard Lisgard, or the cajolments of his mother. After the payment of all his bets, he would yet have left a sum that to one in Mary's position would seem considerable; for he could sell _Many Laws_, after his recent performance, for a great deal of money, to the half of which he rather suspected Mr Blanquette would never venture to lay claim. Yes; he would go down to the place where she had told him her father still dwelt, and would dazzle him with such offers as could scarcely fail to induce him to add the weight of his authority to his own proposals; and there being no particular hurry about the matter, and, as I have said, walking being consonant to his feelings when in wrath, Ralph Derrick had taken the road to Coveton on foot. It was a long distance, and would have involved several days of such travel, under any circumstances, and he did not hurry himself at all. At many a wayside inn, where he stopped to drink, and found the landlord given that way, and to be good company, he stayed for the day and night, and even longer. And often he left the high-road, and took those short-cuts across country which, like “raw haste,” are generally “half-sisters to delay.” This was especially the case when he began to draw near the sea. Those who have passed much of their time upon that element (voluntarily), the roar of ocean attracts as the trumpet-blast the _quondam_ charger, and mile after mile did Derrick stride along the cliff-top wherever it was practicable, and by the shore, notwithstanding that his indulgence in that fancy doubled his journey. When we are out of humour with our fellow-creatures, the external aspects of nature, even though we be no Poets, have often a special attraction for us; the winds of Spring--since as much has been said of those of Winter--are certainly not so unkind as man's ingratitude, and we bid them blow with a sort of soothing scorn; nor does the blue spring sky bite half so nigh as benefits forgot. It pleased Ralph Derrick to let it do its worst, and, rain or shine, he never sought shelter save when he needed drink or rest; and during this last part of his travel, he obtained them as often at some humble farmhouse as at an inn. The simple folks, who stared at his great beard, and wondered why he did not shew them what goods he had in his knapsack, like any other pedler, pleased him hugely; and when