His next experiment, however, led to more important results. A wicket-gate opening into a lane attracted his attention as affording him a better chance of getting upon a more frequented route. Upon opening it, he found himself on a gravelled path close to a hedge side, and separated from the field by a long line of posts and rails. The field which the path skirted was extensive; pasture land on the slope of a hill which fell rapidly towards a brook, over which, at no great distance, was a footbridge, connecting the path, apparently, with a plantation on the opposite side: beyond the plantation appeared some chimney-tops, which gave evidence of dwellings in the neighbourhood. It was a beautiful view which lay extended before him, and Mr. Smith, bounding over the rails, seated himself on the grass, bright with the flowers which adorn our pastures, the scabious, and the hawkweeds, and a score or two more of such living jewels.

Whether Mr. Smith had sat down for the purpose of resting himself, or of botanizing, or of enjoying the prospect of wood and water, fat meadows and distant hills, is more than I can say, for his session was interrupted by the sound of the church clock, which spoke for itself after this fashion:

"One: two: ting, tang: ting, tang."

Half-past two o'clock! is it possible ?" ejaculated Mr. Smith, starting on his feet with surprise; for he had looked at his watch about a quarter of an hour before, and then it wanted just twenty-one minutes to two. "Is it possible? What a wretched affair that church clock at Cumberworth must be. It was set with my watch some five hours ago, and now there is from thirty to five-and-thirty minutes' difference between them. For my part I can't think how people can exist without a good clock; and really these Cumberworth folks seem to know no more of the passage of time than those cows do.

What a lot of them there are; 'forty feeding like one,' as Wordsworth says. I wonder what sort of cheeses they make hereabouts. It ought to be good from such land as this. By the way, I wonder what I shall do with the dairy-women. I suppose there is not such a hopeless, ill-conditioned, ignorant set of creatures in England as the dairy-women. Never at church, never able to be got hold of for instruction, they are hardly above the brutes among whom they spend their lives. What work it must be milking such quantities of cows! why there are ten, and four make fourteen, and eight, that is twenty-two, and down by the water-side two more, -four and twenty cows in this field only. And poor things! how the flies seem teazing them. What comical capers they are cutting. Hullo! why they really seem as if they meant to charge me! It is very well they are not bulls, for some of them look uncommonly wild and savage! I declare I don't half like them. I've heard of running cows, but I suppose if there is not a bull among them they are not likely to be dangerous. Upon my word I believe I had better get out of their way.'

Sooner said than done, Mr. Smith! There they are, the whole herd, tearing up and down the hill sides with their heads down and their tails erect in the air, looking as full of mischievous intent as can be. Every now and then they come to a full stop, Mr. Smith, and look at you, and then tossing their heads wildly from side to side, off they set again, whirling round and round you, and always in a still narrower circle.

For pity's sake, Mr. Smith, get back to the path, and interpose the rails between you and your assailants. For you may depend upon it that it is no joke to have a herd of cows for your antagonists. They may neither gore you nor toss you, (though I won't insure you against either misfortune,) but

they will charge you full tilt, Mr. Smith; and having upset you, the whole herd will gallop over you, and trample on you, and come and smell how you like it, and then trample on you again, till you have got comminuted fractures of all your ribs, Mr. Smith, and there is no more wind in your body than there is in a broken bellows.

Oh, Mr. Smith! what infatuation could lead you to do that? The temptation of a short cut to the bridge? I thought you had been a better general. Don't you see that you have cut off your own retreat? The cows have got between you and the rails, and will charge you down the hill. It is now a trial of speed: you are running for your life. The advantages of a short cut may be bought too dearly. Your present experience on the subject will last you the remainder of your life; but the question is how long you have got to live? That old beldame with a crumpled horn is determined to poke holes in your integuments, if she can catch you. Run, run! Never mind the ditch, Mr. Smith. Well done, neck or nothing! Run, run! that wicked crumpled-horn is within a yard of you! Ah! what is to become of you? You have reached the bridge; but the bridge is private property, and the owner has set a door, girt about with a kind of fan of pointed stakes on its summit and its sides, which makes further progress impossible. There is nothing for you but to dash into the river, (of whose depth you know nothing, and you cannot swim,) or, with such strength as is left you, to tear down some portion of the chevaux-de-frise that opposes your admission to the bridge.

Heaven send that the wood-work may be rotten! Ay, and rotten it is, or desperation makes you vigorous. Down it all comes; chevaux-de-frise, door-posts, door, and ever so much of the wooden parapet, with a rush and a crash that makes

crumpled-horn stop in mid career, and then wheel about, and leave you in safety, Mr. Smith.

Yes, but you have torn your coat, and you are splashed up to your ears with the black mud from the ditch, and you have hardly more breath left in your body than you would have had if your regions thoracic and intercostal had been made the sport of crumpled-horn's hoofs. But, wonderful to relate, breathless and dilapidated as you are, your attention is riveted by the sound of a stable-clock, somewhere close at hand, corroborating that profligate announcement which issued from the Cumberworth tower as you sat upon the bank before your misfortunes commenced.

"One; two: ting-tang: ting-tang!"

Half-past two o'clock, then, down in the valley here, as well as up above! How very extraordinary! You withdraw your watch from your pocket, Mr. Smith, to verify the fact, and O! of what a misfortune are you then cognizant! In your desperate struggles with the woodwork of the bridge, or in scrambling out of crumpled-horn's reach, you have pressed so hard against a projection of some kind, that a great dent has been made upon one side of your watch; that watch, which is the comfort of your life, the instrument that rules the destinies of yourself, and which is the terror of your acquaintance; that watch, which was the gift of your honoured godfather, the acknowledged and venerated head of the Smith family,— the late Mr. Smyth Smythe Smith, of Smithfield in London, and of Smithwick Castle, and the Smythies in the county of Chester.

Put it to your ear, my good friend, put it to your ear, and bless your stars that, in spite of all the misfortunes which seemed inevitable, your watch goes, and so do the cows!

47

CHAPTER VII.

A TRESPASSER.

Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner." Much ado about nothing.

"AND that puts me in mind, Sir Tukesbury, to tell you that Mr. Gibson's new Curate is arrived. I suppose you will leave a card on him the first time you go into the village. He lodges at Miss Finch's."

"Well, Lady Twigge, I must see about it. Do you know anything about him ?"

"Only what I have learned from Mrs. Gibson, who says that he is very able, and has been highly recommended."

"All Curates are highly recommended, my dear. The last employer is always sure to give his Curate the highest possible character, in order to get him off his hands.'

"Ha, ha, ha! Very good, Sir Tukesbury; very good indeed! I shall tell that to the General,' cried Mrs. Podlington, the morning visitor who was being escorted through the gardens and pleasuregrounds of Cumberworth Court. "But do you really call upon your Curate? The General always classes Curates with the lawyer's clerk, and the doctor's young man. You don't mean that you admit them to your table?"

Sir Tukesbury coloured up. He was a jollylooking, good-natured man, not very particular as to whom he invited to his table, provided that he could sufficiently imbue them with convictions of his wealth and grandeur: but his weak point was that he was ashamed of his own origin, and affected to ignore the very thing which he might well re