Mr. Justice Whistler did not neglect to seize such an opportunity, and carefully descending, for in his bruised condition every step was painful, he remounted according to the usual mode, and, with a somewhat splenetic jerk of the bridle, made his beast abandon its poor meal, and proceed on the road before it. That road, indeed, was as unpromising to a man in his condition as any road could be; for his first necessity was now repose and food, and as it was the very way by which he had come, no one could be more certain than himself that there was no house, village, or anything in its course for at least ten miles. When he had gone about one, however, a small country road was seen leading to the left, away over a low hill; and Mr. Justice Whistler paused, and gazed, and pondered. The darkness of the night had now fled, the dull streaks over the eastern hills had changed into gold and crimson, and the clear, cool fresh light of morning was spreading over the whole prospect. The hills rose up and shone in the coming beams; but a faint grey mist lay over the lower grounds, marking out each wooded slope, each wave in the fields, and each hedgerow, in long-defined lines across the view. The hill over which the country road that now attracted the errant justice's attention ran, was, as he sagely judged, fully high enough to conceal a farm, a village, a town--nay, a city itself, should need be--on the other side; and along the sandy road itself were to be traced various marks of cart wheels of no very remote date, and the prints of horses' hoofs more recent still. Such a sight was wonderfully cheering to the justice, who instantly turned his horse's head up the lane, and pursued it perseveringly, though the high and manifold trees in which it embowered itself, soon cut off all further prospect. A quarter of an hour's riding had not yet brought him to anything like a house; but the joyful sound of some one whistling broken snatches of a favourite village song set his heart at rest. The crack of a whip, too, and the rattle and clatter of harness, were soon heard; when lo! the road suddenly turned to the left round a steep bank; and a little village green, with its pond affording much matutinal enjoyment to a party of ducks, and its clump of tall elms, ready to give shade when the sun rose high, presented itself to the eyes of Mr. Justice Whistler as one of the pleasantest sights he had ever seen.