The nearest neighbour to Nathan Blyth was an old farm labourer called Adam Olliver, who for forty years and more, as man and boy, had toiled and moiled on Gregory Houston’s farm. He had now reached an age at which he was unequal to prolonged and heavy labour, and so he spent his time in cutting and trimming the farmer’s hedges--his thoughtful master giving him to understand that though his wages were to be continued as usual, he was at full liberty to work when it pleased him, and to rest when he chose. The old man used to ride to and from his labour on a meek and mild old donkey, which rejoiced in the name of Balaam, and which was never known to travel at any other pace than a slow jog-trot, or to carry any other rider than his master. No sooner did old Balaam become conscious that he was bestridden by any unfamiliar biped, than he curved his neck downwards, placed his head between his knees, elevated his hinder quarters suddenly into mid-air, and ejected the unwelcome tenant of the saddle, and with so brief a notice to quit, that he had generally completed an involuntary somersault, and was landed on Mother Earth, before he knew the nature of the indignity to which he had been subjected. Adam was somewhat short in stature, thick-set in form and frame; his hair was short and grizzly, and his thick iron-grey eyebrows overarched a pair of twinkling blue eyes, full of keen insight and kindly humour. His fustian coat and battered “Jim Crow,” like his wrinkled and sun-browned features, were “weather-tanned, a duffil grey,” and, like his own bending frame, were a good deal worse for wear. A pair of old corduroy nether garments, buttoned at the knees, with gaiters of the same material, affording a peep at the warm, coarse-ribbed, blue worsted stockings underneath, with hobnailed boots armed with heel and toe-plates, all helped to make up a very quaint and favourable picture of his class--a class common enough upon the Yorkshire farms.