"Why, it is as clear and luminous as the sun at noon to my mind," he said to himself: "nothing less than the possession of a high degree of the faculty of intuition could have enabled this youth to announce such a truth. Verily, there is no wonder the rude peasant people entertain suspicions that he hath a familiar, or is a wizard: and that they do entertain such ideas is evident from that strange exclamation, or rather optation, of Gaffer Davy—he wished when the youth's last noose was tied he might find benefit o'clergy. There, is an allusion to the ancient privilege of escape from the halter by a neck-verse, which I have illustrated in the Tallagium. Doubtless, the farmers and ploughmen believe this singular youth to be one who deals in the black art, and think his mal-practices may bring him to the gallows. Ah, it is the way in which the lights of the world have been treated in all ages! I will find out the abode of this miracle of nature, that I will!" he said, and again fell asleep. The morning broke, Hubby opened his eyes, and forthwith arose to renew his self-congratulations. "Ah, Hubby," said he to himself, "you will live to be called Master Zerubbabel again, by gentle and simple; for you are destined, this day, to achieve a great work!" And then he went over the roll of his reasonings again, and, feeling more assured than ever of the certitude of them, he again congratulated himself. "Ay, as old as I am, I have not lost my power of penetrating a matter," he said; "tell me who, in the whole county of Rutland, except myself, could have found this out from the simple premises on which it was given me to erect my sagacious hypothesis?" Reader,—was Hubby Dickinson a very silly old fellow to talk and think thus? Ah, how many of your great philosophers have reared their world-admired hypotheses from premises as slight; and yet how long it was before the folly of many of them was found out! Well, there was now but one step to be taken as a preliminary to the commencement of Hubby's journey to Hambleton, which, he was sure, would be memorable while the world lasted: it was—to give his scholars a holiday. Reader,—talk of potentates by whatever name you will; but your schoolmaster is your only emperor! Can he not make laws—break laws—bind his subjects—set them free—and, in one word, do what he listeth? I tell thee, reader, that his is the true _imperium in imperio_: his will is law, and who can gainsay it? Thou knowest of no potentate so truly imperial as the village schoolmaster.