respect than he was at first disposed was about six feet high, and of a to accord to a pedestrian traveller"To W- -, sir? why, you will not surely go there to-night: it is more than eight miles distant, and the roads none of the best?" 66 "Now, a curse on all rogues!" quoth the youth with a serious sort of vivacity. Why, the miller, at the foot of the hill, assured me I should be at my journey's end in less than an hour." "He may have said right, sir," returned the man, "yet you will not reach W- in twice that time." "How do you mean?" said the younger stranger. "Why that you may for once force a miller to speak truth in spite of himself, and make a public house, about three miles hence, the end of your day's journey." "Thank you for the hint," said the youth. "Does the house you speak of lie on the road-side?" "No, sir: the lane branches off about two miles hence, and you must then turn to the right: but till then, our way is the same, and if you would not prefer your own company to mine, we can trudge on together." "With all my heart," rejoined the younger stranger; "and not the less willingly from the brisk pace you walk. I thought I had few equals in pedestrianism; but it should not be for a small wager that I would undertake to keep up with you." "Perhaps, sir," said the man laughing, "I have had in the course of my life, a better usage and a longer experience of my heels than you have." Somewhat startled by a speech of so equivocal a meaning, the youth, for the first time, turned round to examine as well as the increasing darkness would permit, the size and appearance of his companion. He was not perhaps too well satisfied with his survey. His fellow pedestrian correspondent girth of limb and frame, which would have made him fearful odds in any encounter where bodily strength was the best means of conquest. Notwithstanding the mildness of the weather, he was closely buttoned in a rough great coat, which was well calculated to give all due effect to the athletic proportions of the wearer. There was a pause of some moments. "This is but a wild, savage sort of scene for England, sir, in this day of new-fashioned ploughs and farming improvements," said the tall stranger, looking round at the ragged wastes, and grim woods, which lay steeped in the shade beside and before them. They tell us! who tell us?" exclaimed the stranger, with great vivacity. "Is it the puny and spiritless artisan, or the debased and crippled slave of the counter and the till, or the sallow speculator on morals, who would mete us out our liberty— our happiness-our very feelings, by the yard, and inch, and fraction? No, no, let them follow what the books and precepts of their own wisdom teach them; let them cultivate more highly the lands they have already parcelled out by dykes and fences, and leave, though at scanty intervals, some green patches of unpolluted land for the poor man's beast, and the free man's foot." "You are an enthusiast on this subject," said the younger traveller, not a little surprised at the tone and words of the last speech; "and if I were not just about to commence the world with a firm persuasion that enthusiasm on any matter is a great obstacle to success, I could be as warm, though not so eloquent, as yourself." tall stranger, indifferently; "precisely so. It is to that antient body that I belong." "The devil you do?" quoth the youth, in unsophisticated surprise; "the progress of education, is indeed, astonishing!" "Why," answered the stranger, laughing, "to tell you the truth, sir, I am a gipsy by inclination, not birth. The illustrious Bamfylde Moore Carew is not the only example of one of gentle blood and honourable education whom the fleshpots of Egypt have seduced." "Ah, sir," said the stranger, sinking into a more natural and careless tone, "I have a better right than I imagine you can claim to repine or even to inveigh against the boundaries which are day by day, and hour by hour, encroaching upon what I have learned to look upon as my own territory. You were, just before I joined you, "I congratulate myself," quoth the singing an old song; I honour you youth, in a tone that might have for your taste and no offence, sir, been in jest, "upon becoming acbut a sort of fellowship in feeling quainted with a character at once so made me take the liberty to accost respectable and so novel; and, to you. I am no very great scholar in return your quotation in the way of other things; but I owe my present a compliment, I cry out with the circumstances of life solely to my most fashionable author of Elizabeth's fondness for those old songs and daysquaint madrigals. And I believe no person can better apply to himself Will Shakspeare's invitation :— Under the green wood tree And tune his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, No enemy But winter and rough weather.'" Relieved from his former fear, but with increased curiosity at this quotation, which was half said, half sung, in a tone which seemed to evince a hearty relish for the sense of the words, the youth replied "Truly, I did not expect to meet among the travellers of this wild country with so well stored a memory. And, indeed, I should have imagined that the only persons to whom your verses could exactly have applied were those honourable vagrants from the Nile, whom in vulgar language we term gipsies." O for a bowl of fat Canary, Rich Palermo-sparkling Sherry,' in order to drink to our better acquaintance." "Thank you sir,-thank you," cried the strange gipsy, seemingly delighted with the spirit with which his young acquaintance appeared to enter into his character and his quotation from a class of authors at that time much less known and appreciated than at present; "and if you have seen already enough of the world to take up with ale when neither Canary, Palermo, nor Sherry are forthcoming, I will promise, at least, to pledge you in large draughts of that homely beverage. What say you to passing a night with us? our tents are yet more at hand than the public-house of which I spoke to you." The young man hesitated a moment, then replied— "I will answer you frankly, my friend, even though I may find cause "Precisely so, sir," answered the to repent my confidence. I have a |