discovered, and the sensitive recluse was being
exhibited at half-a-crown, one shilling, and
ninepence each!

I could not approach my poor friend in such
company, but, noting the direction taken by the
'bus, it struck me that, by making a dive through
the thicket, I might possibly anticipate their
arrival. Hardly had I entered, when a familiar
voice pronounced my name. I started round.
It was Bob himself!

He was ensconced in a sort of arbour made
of boughs, so closely interwoven that I had
passed him almost within arm's length without
notice.

"'Sh!" said Bob, with his finger on his lip;
"I've sold them splendidly. How lucky you
cut through here! Sit down, Harry, my boy,
and I'll tell you all about it."

The hermit wore his summer robe—a by no
means unbecoming garment. His hair and
beard had grown to an inordinate length, and he
himself was so much thinner as to convince me
that his root-and-water diet had been no mere
pretence.

"We are safe now," said Bob. "Harry, you
were in the right; I am" (with a melancholy
smile) "an anachronism. The world has recognised
that fact, and comes twice a day (besides
pic-nics) to remind me of it. You remember the
poacher I spoke of? That villain betrayed me.
Within a few days of his visit, I began to be
conscious of the occasional vicinity of my kind.
Cigar-ends, sandwich-papers, a battered umbrella,
are not the ordinary products of a wilderness.
Distant human voices mingled inharmoniously
with the sylvan sounds. At least, I am aware
of no British beast—man excepted—that is in
the habit of insisting, in chorus, and for a
considerable time together, that he is a 'jolly dog.'
It was plain that these intruders purposely
haunted my locality. I believe they peeped at
me through the boughs. Guessing this, I
secluded myself more. Then came messages,
improvised, of course: 'Best compliments—could
the hermit oblige some ladies with the loan of a
rolling-pin?' 'A party of tourists, having
forgotten the mustard, would the Fra,' &c.
&c."

"I thought Sir Quigley had expressly
forbidden such intruders."

"He had," said Bob. "I therefore wrote to
him on the subject. Answer returned by agent
—a Mr. Bobbery, or Bolberry. Poor Quig was
lying dangerously ill at Milan. A retired
solicitor had settled at Falcombe, and, wanting
something to do, stirred up an old quarrel as to
right of way across Quantock's woods. By Jove,
sir, they carried it, and the first result was the
establishment of the cavalcade you beheld,
'working,' as they call it, from Falcombe to a
most, romantic spot in the heart of the forest,
and, says the bill, 'within a stone's throw of the
celebrated Hermit's Cave.' I was sorely tempted
to test the truth of this latter announcement
by practical experiment," concluded my
friend.

"What shall you do, now?" I asked.
"Come back, I hope, with me. You have had
your fancy. Enough."

"Never," said the hermit. "I am content,
if they would only let me alone. Yesterday I
came to the resolution to abandon my cell
during the day, and conceal myself here. When
they find there is no chance of seeing me, the
'jolly dogs' may hold their orgies elsewhere.
My door has but the latch, but I think they
will respect that. At six o'clock we may go
home."

Dear old Bob had judged too much by his own
heart, which, eccentric as he was, was that of a
true gentleman. Whether in thoughtlessness,
or in mischief, the sanctity of his bower had been
rudely violated. The jolly dogs had dined
there, and, to all appearance, passed a very
jolly time! Nothing, indeed, had been
abstracted; on the contrary, the corks, bottles,
broken plates, &c., not to mention pie-crust,
bones, lobster-shells, &c.—bequeathed to the
anchorite—might have filled a small
wheelbarrow.

I was yet gazing on the relics, when I heard
Bob utter an exclamation. He had clutched a
fragment of newspaper on which his eye had
fallen. His face was pale and agitated.

"I—I had striven to forget her," he
stammered, "and here, even here, like a ghost, she
haunts me still!"

The paragraph to which he pointed
announced that Lady Tattershore, who (readers
would remember) had become a widow some
time before, during a residence at Cairo, would,
at the expiration of her mourning, bestow her
hand, and her twenty-five thousand a year, upon
the Marquis of Queerfish.

"Tattershore was a brute, and Queerfish is a
worse," groaned Bob, dropping the paper from
his hand.

His passion had never been eradicated. He
had, as it were, forcibly banished this woman's
image from his mind; but the circumstance so
singularly brought to his notice caused it to
return with such force, that poor Bob, already
worried and perplexed with the invasion of
his solitude, could not regain his tranquil
mood.

One thing was plain—that all hope of peace,
in his present retreat, was at an end. I have
not space to tell by what arguments I prevailed
upon Bob to accept the loan of a spare suit I
had fortunately brought in my knapsack, to cut
his hair, to pack up his hermit attire, and,
abandoning all else, embark with me in the hospitable
bark of my friend Smijthe; nor how the latter
received him with the greatest kindness, and,
conveying him to Dieppe, put him on the way
to his new destination—Switzerland.

From the latter country Bob wrote once,
informing me that he had pitched his tent, or
cabin, this time (as he hoped) above the world,
on a mountain-side, above Martigny. In vain.
A path had been found, outflanking and
overtopping the hermit, and a huge telescope,
mounted, like a gun, swept his position at all
hours of the day. Bob went higher. A member