in the little hamlet of Holyton, between Garcosh
aud Thankerton, in Westmoreland, supplied food
for conjecture not only to the dwellers in that
sequestered neighbourhood, but the country at
large.

Holyton, in the last century, was but an irregular
clump of little detached dwellings, nestling
in the bend of a valley, aud holding itself coyly
aloof from the rest of the world. The highway from
Garcosh to Thankerton passed within a mile,
and, as if suddenly remembering that there was
such a place as Holyton, shot off a by-road—
flinty and forbidding enough — in search of it.

Holyton's wants were few, and its one little
shop went near — with the exception of meat— to
supply all the essential needs of life. There
were no poor in the village. At least one-half
of the limited population were Quakers. Those
who were not of that brotherhood were accustomed
to walk four long miles to their place of
worship at Thankerton; and this little Sunday
procession — sole link between Holyton and the
world — afforded to its contented people all the
excitement they desired.

There was one exception to this habitual non-
intercourse with the rest of mankind, comprising
an excitement the quiet folks did not desire—
and that was the periodical visits of Nin Small,
a travelling tinker, a man of savage aspect,
of colossal size, of bellicose propensities, and
of temper, when in his cups, which can only be
compared to that of a bull, naturally irritable,
exasperated by toothache. Mr. Small was
reported to be of gipsy descent. He had, indeed,
not attempted to conceal that his ancestors had
been lords of Little Egypt, until expelled by
the Saracens on account of their Christian
faith, which, notwithstanding, they seemed
somehow to have left behind them. Mr. Small's
manifest short-comings in this particular, not to
speak of his unstable temper, caused great
uneasiness at Holyton; but the carnal aid he
afforded — for he was a first-rate and most
expeditious workman — was too valuable to be lost.
Moreover, he was an embodied news-letter.
Great was the mass of tidings, six months old,
he had to relate; and no sooner was the burly
ruffian, with his barrow, seen tramping up the
little-frequented thoroughfare, than it was who
should catch him first — tired, indeed, and
thirsty, but fairly civil, and full of news and
work. The joy, in fact, at his arrival, was only
surpassed by that which hailed his departure!

Quaker houses are proverbially neat; but the
last, and largest, cottage in the village, where
resided a widow, Dorcas Hodgkin, and her
little daughter, was both neat and pretty.
Hodgkin had met with some reverse of fortune,
followed quickly by his death, leaving his wife
and child in circumstances that threatened to
compel them to part with the home endeared to
them by the recollection of many tranquil days.
There seemed out one alternative, and that
Dorcas did not like. But it did not matter,
for the chance of finding a satisfactory lodger,
at a place so secluded as Holyton, seemed
beyond the pale of hope.

It happened that old Adam Purslet, who
inhabited one of the smaller tenements, had crept,
out into his very diminutive garden, and, while
pottering among his lettuces, became aware of a
horse-tramp, aud the astounding phenomenon
of a stranger passing through the village, leading
his horse by the bridle.

Casting impatient glances right and left, the
stranger descried Adam, and, halting, leaned
upon the paling.

"Ho, there, old Adam!"

"Thee knowest my name?" said the old man,
in some surprise.

"I see your occupation, which was Adam's,"
replied the stranger, with a sneer. "Is there
never a forge at hand? See how my good horse
is lamed by your cursed roads."

"Execration will little mend them, friend,
and may do theeself very grievous hurt," said
Adam.

The stranger uttered a short hollow laugh.

Adam noticed that his face was very thin and
pale, and his eye somewhat sunken. The
features, however, were cast in a refined mould,
aud, but for their expression, which, when it
was not one of profound melancholy, smacked
of disdain, he might have been esteemed a
sufficiently personable man, of about thirty.
His hair fell in jetty ringlets over the collar
and cape of his riding-coat, which, like the rest
of his dress, was of fine material. His horse
was a magnificent roadster — one of those for
which, in days when this manly mode of travel
was in vogue, no price was considered too high.
Pistols in the holsters, and a small valise
strapped to the back of the saddle, completed
the ordinary equipment of a well-to-do traveller
of the time.

"Good morrow to thee, John the less," said
old Purslet to a Quaker youth, who passed and
smiled to him.

"Are ye all 'ducks' in this neighbourhood?"
inquired the stranger.

"If by 'ducks' thee meanest Friends, hadst
thee not better say so," returned Adam Purslet,
"seeing that the term hath not obtained
among us?"

The traveller repeated his sepulchral laugh,
and again inquired, with some impatience,
whether a forge existed in the neighbourhood.

Adam replied that there was none nearer
than Thankerton, at which the stranger croaked
a laugh.

And John the less, who had lingered near,
regretted that Nin Small was not just then at
hand, as he that restored Dorcas Hodgkin's
boiler to a condition rather better than new,
could surely construct a horse's temporary
shoe.

"When would this Tubal Cain return?"
inquired the traveller.

"If thee hast studied thy Bible only to devise
ill-fitting names, I have fear of thy condition,
friend," said Adam.

"When, I ask you, will this fellow be back
hither ?" repeated the stranger, with a raised
voice.