NOVEMBER. 317 



blows it has borne, and a pension of a few shillings 

 a-week to get drunk upon. He goes home to dis- 

 cover that death has been as busy there as in the 

 battle-field, in the Walcheren morass, or the plague- 

 haunted garrison ; and to find it, even with his 

 pension, but weary work waiting for the grave. 



But alas ! for the poor creatures I am now bound 

 to sketch. Had fortune but been tolerably moderate 

 with them, they would never have gone ten miles 

 from the spot in which they were born ; but some 

 sudden distress arouses them from their regular 

 dream of existence, and they start across the 

 country to its farthest extremity with the wildness 

 of comets. 



Look at that middle-aged, old-fashioned fellow ! 

 Do you not see the cause of his journey at once ? 

 He is a labourer ; his eldest daughter, a girl of 

 seventeen, is gone to live in the family of some re- 

 lation of the squire's, forty miles off. He has just 

 heard news that has alarmed him. His wife and he 

 have sat in speechless grief and consternation for a 

 space, till the good woman cried out, " John, you 

 must up and go ! you must see Mary. You must 

 learn the whole truth. She was always a good girl, 

 and we must not have her lost." For a moment, 

 the very idea of the journey, and the encountering 

 of fine folk, and clever folk, to boot, as he wisely 

 imagines all fine folk to be, overcomes him with a 

 weakness ; but the thought of his daughter's danger 

 returns with double power; he gets up with a groan, 

 and prepares for his great journey. Look at his 

 27* 



