feeling that a small dose of tobacco would suit
my present condition very well, determined to
climb the turret staircase, and enjoy a quiet
smoke in the observatory.

The room was charming. There were large
windows in it, and the view was most extensive,
taking in scenery of a very varied kind—
hill and dale, wood, river, and plain. The
signs of habitation were not numerous, the
country being but thinly populated: still there
were cottages and farmhouses scattered here
and there, and even one or two villages in the
distance. I lighted my cigar and gave myself
up to tranquil enjoyment of the scene before
me.

As I sat thus, the clock of my host's church
struck three. Remembering that to be the hour
of Mr. Irwin's interview with Harding, my
thoughts reverted to the subject of the widow's
debt, and to the good-nature which my old
friend had displayed in giving himself so
much trouble and undertaking such a thankless
office. My mind did not dwell long on
these things, however. I happened to catch
sight of the telescope, which was put away in a
corner of the room; and being restless, and
not in a mood in which total inaction was
agreeable to me, I determined to have it out and
examine the details of the landscape which I
had just been studying on a large scale.

The day was very favourable for my purpose.
The sun was shining and there was an
east wind: a combination which often produces
a remarkable clearness in the atmosphere.
Circumstances could not possibly be more suitable
for telescopic operations, so placing the
instrument on its stand before one of the open
windows, I sat down and commenced my
survey.

It was a superb telescope, and although I
knew it well, and had often used it before, I
found myself still astonished at its power and
range. I set myself to trying experiments as
to the extent of its capacity, taking the time
by the church clock of a village two miles off,
trying to make out what people were doing in
the extreme distance, and in other ways putting
the capabilities of the instrument to the test.
That done, with results of the most satisfactory
kind, I went to work in a more leisurely fashion,
shifting the glass from point to point of the
landscape, as the fancy took me, and enjoying
the delicious little circular pictures, which, in
endless variety, seemed to tit themselves, one
after another, into the end of the instrument.
The little round pictures were some of them
very pretty. Here was one—the first the telescope
showed me—in the front of which was a
small patch of purple earth just brought under
the plough. A little copse bounded one side
of this arable land; there was a very bright
green field in the distance; and in the foreground
the plough itself was crawling slowly
along, drawn by a couple of ponderous and
sturdy horses, a bay and a white, whose course
was directed by an old man with a blue neckerchief,
the ends hanging loose, a boy being in attendance
to turn the horses at the end of each
furrow, and generally to keep them up to their
work.

A turn of the glass, and another picture
takes its place. A road-side ale-house now.
One of the upper windows has a muslin half
blind betokening the guest chamber, another
on the ground floor is ornamented with a red
curtain—the tap-room, this, where convivial
spirits congregate on Saturday nights. The
inn has a painted sign; somebody in a scarlet
coat and with something on his head which I
can't quite make out; perhaps it is a three-
cornered hat, and perhaps the inn is dedicated
to the inevitable Marquis of Granby. Stay! I
recollect now seeing such an inn in one of my
walks in the neighbourhood. It is the Marquis
of Granby, as I well remember. An empty
cart is standing in front of the house, the driver
watering his horses, and beering himself, just
before the house door, where I can see him
plainly.

Another and a more extensive turn, and the
little railway station comes within the limits of
the magic circle. Not much to interest here:
a small whitewashed, slate-roofed, formal building,
hard, and angular, and hideous. A lot of
sacks piled up against the wall, waiting to be
sent off by the luggage train, a great signal post
rising into the air, a row of telegraphic poles
stretching away in perspective.

Now a prosperous farmstead, with a big
thatched house, where the farmer and his
family reside, with well-preserved sheds and
outhouses: there is a straw-yard, too, with
cattle standing knee-deep, and eating out of
racks well found in hay; and there are pigs
wallowing in the mire, and there are cocks and
hens jerking themselves hither and thither,
and pecking, and generally fussing, as their
manner is. This picture in its circular frame
pleases me well, and so does the next. A gentleman's
seat of the entirely comfortable, not of
the showy and ostentatious, sort. The grounds
are large enough to be called a park, and the
house lying rather low, as it was the fashion to
build a century or two ago, stands in the midst
of them, with a trim and pleasantly formal
flower-garden round about it. It is a red brick
house of the Hanoverian time, with a rather
high slate (green slate) roof, with dormer windows
in it. The other windows have white
sashes which are flush with the wall, and not,
as in these days, sunk in a recess.

I look long on this scene, and then, not without
reluctance, shift my glass, and turning away
from human habitations, begin to examine the
more retired and unfrequented parts of the
landscape. The magic circle now encloses
nothing but trees and meadows, and little quiet
nooks and corners, where the lazy cows stand
about in shady places too idle even to feed, or
where the crows blacken the very ground by
their numbers, unmolested by shouting boys,
unscared by even the old traditional hat and
coat upon a stick. I come presently to a little
bright green paddock, with a pony feeding in
it—a refreshing little round picture pleasant to
dwell on. There is a pond in one corner of the