It will be long before the memory of old Tom Cussitt, "the wise man of Welton," will be forgot in Lindsey. "Cusworth" was his proper name, but old Lindsey folk made it a rule to shorten folks' names when they had to use them often, and there were few names more frequently in a peasant's mouth, at that time of the day, for twenty miles round Louth, than that of "Tom Cussitt." Good Lord! if one were to tell all the stories one has heard of his discoveries of stolen goods by the stars; of the marks he was wont to put on the thieves, that the owners of the goods might know the rogues when they saw 'em; of the wondrous way in which he could show a love-sick maiden her future husband in the old-fashioned witch-looking mirror that hung in his darkened room; and of the strange facts he foretold to some people, when he "cast their nativities,"—that mystic process in which he never erred a hair's breadth,—why, it would take a twelvemonth to go through the labour! But, to attend to old and young Davy. It was but half-a-dozen miles from Long Ludforth to Welton, and so they and their little team were soon there. Young Davy, it may be guessed, gazed hard at the "Wise Man," and thought him an awful-looking personage, though Tom Cussitt was, at that time of day, a somewhat handsome-looking man. His fine clear blue eye was not, as yet, overhung with those bushy, unsightly brows that marked him in old age; his fair, ruddy skin was not, as yet, disfigured and concealed by the filthy long gray beard he afterwards wore; nor had his fine manly height yet contracted a stoop. Old Davy had often seen Wise Tom before, having frequently conveyed customers to his cottage, and therefore he did not stare at him with wonder or surprise, like the lad. As for Tom, he, of course, stared at neither father nor son, being quite prepared, like Sidrophel, to say to every comer— "I did expect you here, and knew, Before you spake, your business, too."