“When the boggart tumbles, the crows re-gather,” he murmured sententiously; but he set to singing again, though with an eye alert for mishaps. Nothing occurred, however; nor had he sighted a solitary soul moving in the breadth of the wide landscape, when--without a change being obvious in the character of the latter--he found himself descending a steep slope to a little long township of queer and ancient houses. Here at a pleasant small tavern--on whose sign-board, as he approached, he read the legend “The First Inn” (the reverse slyly exhibited, to the eternal merriment of chuckleheads, the obvious antiperistasis of “The Last Out”)--he drew rein, and found he had reached the village of Stockbridge, which was in truth that halting-place on his last stage, from which he was, as he had learned, to take a by-road, some five or six miles, to his destination. Into the tap he strode; and there were a few gaping rustics swilling their muddy quarts, and the landlord, a wizened, bent-stick of a man, behind the bar. “Oblige me by sending some one to look after my horse,” said Mr. Tuke to this person. The person shifted a glass or two, covertly eyeing the stranger through rheumy slits of lids; but answer made he none. Mr. Tuke repeated his request--still without result. He turned sharply on one of the grinning hinds. “What ails the old faggot?” he said. “He be stone deaf, master.” Then the fellow bawled: “Jarge! Jar-rge! the gen’leman warnts ’s oss tended.” The old man put a wrinkled claw to his ear, and shook his head. “Eh!” said Mr. Tuke. “You refuse?” He flushed in surprised anger, when at the moment a girl came into the bar, and addressed him in a bright civil voice. “Grandfather’s deaf, sir,” she said; “and I was out of the way. I’ll send your horse to the stable. And what shall I draw for your honour?” She was fresh and desirable as a spring of sweet water to a thirsty traveller. An old yellow handkerchief, of cherished silk, was knotted about her head, yet none so jealously but that a curl or two might escape--like tendrils of Tantalus his vine--for the teasing of fervid souls; and her gown, girdled under her bosom and fastened there with a favour of Michaelmas daisy, smelt of lavender and was the colour of it. She was tall, too, for a Hebe of the downs, and her arms, bare to the elbow, were tanned of a soft ivory--as were her hands, that were fine and capable-looking. She gazed honestly at our gentleman from eyes as full of brown harmonies as a starling’s back; and he had no thought but to return her gaze with complete admiration. “Can you give me to eat?” he said. “Anything will do.” And “Surely, sir,” she answered, “if simple fare will serve your honour.” She showed him into a queer little parlour, with a long latticed window that looked into a vegetable garden ruddy with apple-trees, and fetched cloth and salt from a corner cupboard, while he sat down by an old grumbling grandfather clock and watched her movements.