e hedgerows,--only (as if from the very
heart of the most distant woods), there came now and then the mellow
note of the cuckoo.

"Verily," said Mr. Dale, softly, "my lot has fallen on a goodly
heritage."

The Italian twitched his cloak over him, and sighed almost inaudibly.
Perhaps he thought of his own Summer Land, and felt that, amidst all
that fresh verdure of the North, there was no heritage for the stranger.

However, before the parson could notice the sigh or conjecture the
cause, Dr. Riccabocca's thin lips took an expression almost malignant.

"Per Bacco!" said he; "in every country I observe that the rooks settle
where the trees are the finest. I am sure that, when Noah first landed
on Ararat, he must have found some gentleman in black already settled in
the pleasantest part of the mountain, and waiting for his tenth of the
cattle as they came out of the Ark."

The parson fixed his meek eyes on the philosopher, and there was in them
something so deprecating rather than reproachful that Dr. Riccabocca
turned away his face, and refilled his pipe. Dr. Riccabocca abhorred
priests; but though Parson Dale was emphatically a parson, he seemed at
that moment so little of what Dr. Riccabocca understood by a priest
that the Italian's heart smote him for his irreverent jest on the
cloth. Luckily at this moment there was a diversion to that untoward
commencement of conversation in the appearance of no less a personage
than the donkey himself--I mean the donkey who ate the apple.

CHAPTER VI.

The tinker was a stout, swarthy fellow, jovial and musical withal, for
he was singing a stave as he flourished his staff, and at the end of
each refrain down came the staff on the quarters of the donkey. The
tinker went behind and sang, the donkey went before and was thwacked.

"Yours is a droll country," quoth Dr. Riccabocca; "in mine, it is not
the ass that walks first in the procession that gets the blows."

The parson jumped from the stile, and looking over the hedge that
divided the field from the road--"Gently, gently," said he; "the sound
of the stick spoils the singing! Oh, Mr. Sprott, Mr. Sprott! a good man
is merciful to his beast."

The donkey seemed to recognize the voice of its friend, for it stopped
short, pricked one ear wistfully, and looked up. The tinker touched his
hat, and looked up too. "Lord bless your reverence! he does not mind
it,--he likes it. I vould not hurt thee; would I, Neddy?"

The do