A WILD GALLOP. Whilst these things were transpiring, and a pleasant intercourse of friendship was progressing in and about Woodburn, things and feelings of a very different character were laying the foundations of future complications in the same, as yet, happy neighbourhood. Mr. Degge had taken and furnished a cottage in Hillmartin, very near his own house, for his mother. The yet hale and cheerful woman of fifty, was much fonder of a house more resembling in size and furnishing her former humble habitation by the Castleborough meadows, than the large house of her son called Hillmartin Hall. She could not here work and get up linen, but she could spin and look after a little garden. She must have some employment: and Simon Degge knew that his mother would feel much more happy in a house of her own than in a great house, even though her son and daughter-in-law showed her every honour and all affection. She could come in and out as she pleased, and yet have a house to return to where she was mistress, and felt that everything was her own. She had one little maid-servant, and her cottage was as cheerful and pleasant as plenty and a love of neatness and order could make it. She had her little garden, and cultivated flowers, especially the old English flowers, pinks, double-daisies, daffodils, wall-flowers, polyanthuses, and the like. The roses and honeysuckles that covered her garden porch and peeped in at her windows, saw the balm-of-Gilead and egg plants and geraniums looking out at them and seeming to say, “we are all happy.” Old Mrs. Degge, if old she could be called, had her cat and her great green-baize covered bible, and she could do with such company much better than some people can with whole crowds. Mrs. Degge—we shall distinguish her daughter-in-law as Mrs. Simon Degge—had beyond these things a source of satisfaction which, next to the happiness and prosperity of her son and his family, was the grand satisfaction of her life. Mrs. Degge was a Methodist, and was a most notable acquisition to the society at Hillmartin. There were a considerable number of Methodists in the village, but chiefly amongst the poorer class. There was no appointed preacher at the chapel, but local preachers, often working men at Castleborough, officiated there. Sometimes there came a greater gun—a round-preacher, as he was called—one appointed by Conference to preach at different places within a certain round, or district. Besides these, there were occasional amateur preachers—gentlemen, who felt it a duty to assist in preaching the gospel.