and we with
our beetle eyes can only see three inches, it takes some confidence in
general principles to pull us through.

Well, it was all fixed up; and down I came to Yorkshire. I wasn't in the
best of spirits when I started, Bertie, but they went down and down as
I neared my destination. How people can dwell in such places passes my
comprehension. What can life offer them to make up for these mutilations
of the face of Nature? No woods, little grass, spouting chimneys,
slate-coloured streams, sloping mounds of coke and slag, topped by
the great wheels and pumps of the mines. Cinder-strewn paths, black as
though stained by the weary miners who toil along them, lead through
the tarnished fields to the rows of smoke-stained cottages. How can any
young unmarried man accept such a lot while there's an empty hammock in
the navy, or a berth in a merchant forecastle? How many shillings a week
is the breath of the ocean worth? It seems to me that if I were a poor
man--well, upon my word, that "if" is rather funny when I think that
many of the dwellers in those smoky cottages have twice my salary with
half my expenses.

Well, as I said, my spirits sank lower and lower until they got down
into the bulb, when on looking through the gathering gloom I saw
"Merton" printed on the lamps of a dreary dismal station. I got out, and
was standing beside my trunk and my hat-box, waiting for a porter, when
up came a cheery-looking fellow and asked me whether I was Dr. Stark
Munro. "I'm Horton," said he; and shook hands cordially.

In that melancholy place the sight of him was like a fire on a frosty
night. He was gaily dressed in the first place, check trousers, white
waistcoat, a flower in his button hole. But the look of the man was
very much to my heart. He was ruddy checked and black eyed, with a jolly
stout figure and an honest genial smile. I felt as we clinched hands in
the foggy grimy station that I had met a man and a friend.

His carriage was waiting, and we drove out to his residence, The
Myrtles, where I was speedily introduced both to his family and his
practice. The former is small, and the latter enormous. The wife is
dead; but her mother, Mrs. White, keeps house for him; and there are two
dear little girls, about five and seven. Then there is an unqualified
assistant, a young Irish student, who, with the three maids, the
coachman, and the stable boy, make up the whole establishment. When I
tell you that we give four ho