PINCH-ME-NEAR FOREST 



commons and heaths of a wet, sterile, Pewitey 

 country, which gradually got worse as they neared 

 the stunted brushwood of the straggling forest. 

 At length they came upon a nest of forest 

 squatters, with their wretched mud cabins and 

 rolling fences, by whom they were directed to a 

 smart, well-hung green gate, with a cattle-gap 

 on either side, as the commencement of Mr. 

 Prettyfat's inattentions. Some well-used horse 

 trods, converging towards a gently rising hill on 

 the right, from whence a curl of clear smoke 

 was now rising, favoured the supposition that 

 the representative of Royalty was not far off. 

 Though the morning was in its pride yet when 

 our friends got to the front of the neat rose- 

 entwined house the windows were as white as 

 the rough cast walls there were no signs of 

 animation of any sort. 'The beggar's not hup 

 yet, I do believe,' observed Mr. Jorrocks, spur- 

 ring the great splaw-footed Arterxerxes right on 

 to the trimly shaven grass-plot in the centre of 

 the carriage ring. Rising in his stirrups, and 



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