What they were talking of their companion could not tell; but it excited, in some degree, his curiosity; and the manners of his two companions had, to say the truth, pleased him, though he was one of those men who, with very benevolent feelings at the bottom, are but little inclined to acknowledge that they are well pleased with anything or with anybody. For a moment or two all parties were silent; but the elderly gentleman was the first to begin, saying, in a more placable and complimentary tone than he was in general accustomed to use, "I hope I am to have the pleasure of your society, gentlemen, to the end of my journey?" "I rather think we shall be your companions as far as you go," replied the gayer of the two young men, "for we are wending down to the far, wild parts of Kent; and it is probable you will not go beyond Folkestone, unless, indeed, you are about to cross the seas." "Not I," exclaimed the old gentleman--"I have crossed the seas enough in my day, and never intend to set my foot out of my own country again, till four stout fellows carry me to the churchyard. No, no; you'll journey beyond me a long way, for I am only going to a little place called Harbourne, some distance on the Sussex side of Folkestone: a place quite out of the world, with no bigger a town near it than Cranbrook, and where we see the face of a human creature above the rank of a farmer, or a smuggler about once in the year--always excepting the parson of the parish." "Then you turn off from Maidstone?" said the graver traveller, looking steadfastly in his face. "No, I don't," replied the other. "Never, my dear sir, come to conclusions where you don't know the premises. I go, on the contrary, to Ashford, where I intend to sleep. I am there to be joined by a worthy brother of mine, and then we return together to Cranbrook. You are quite right, indeed, that my best and straightest road would be, as you say, from Maidstone; but we can't always take the straightest road in this world, though young men think they can, and old men only learn too late that they cannot." "I have good reason to know the fact," said the gayer of his two fellow travellers; "I myself am going to the very same part of the country you mention, but have to proceed still farther out of my way; for I must visit Hythe and Folkestone first." "Indeed, indeed!" exclaimed their elderly friend. "Do you know any body in that part of Kent?--Have you ever been there before?" "Never," replied the other; "nor have I ever seen the persons I am going to see. What sort of a country is it?"