galloped.

The sexton's first inquiries were directed to ascertain how Luke had
accomplished his escape; and, having satisfied himself in this
particular, he was content to remain silent; musing, it might be, on the
incidents detailed to him.

The road Luke chose was a rough, unfrequented lane, that skirted, for
nearly a mile, the moss-grown palings of the park. It then diverged to
the right, and seemed to bear towards a range of hills rising in the
distance. High hedges impeded the view on either hand; but there were
occasional gaps, affording glimpses of the tract of country through
which he was riding. Meadows were seen steaming with heavy dews,
intersected by a deep channelled stream, whose course was marked by a
hanging cloud of vapor, as well as by a row of melancholy
pollard-willows, that stood like stripped, shivering urchins by the
river side. Other fields succeeded, yellow with golden grain, or bright
with flowering clover--the autumnal crop--colored with every shade, from
the light green of the turnip to the darker verdure of the bean, the
various products of the teeming land. The whole was backed by round
drowsy masses of trees.

Luke spoke not, nor abated his furious course, till the road began to
climb a steep ascent. He then drew in the rein, and from the heights of
the acclivity surveyed the plain over which he had passed.

It was a rich agricultural district, with little picturesque beauty, but
much of true English endearing loveliness to recommend it. Such a quiet,
pleasing landscape, in short, as one views, at such a season of the
year, from every eminence in every county of our merry isle. The picture
was made up of a tract of land filled with corn ripe for the sickle, or
studded with sheaves of the same golden produce, enlivened with green
meadows, so deeply luxuriant as to claim the scythe for the second time;
each divided from the other by thick hedgerows, the uniformity of which
was broken ever and anon by some towering elm, tall poplar, or
wide-branching oak. Many old farmhouses, with their broad barns and
crowded haystacks--forming little villages in themselves--ornamented the
landscape at different points, and by their substantial look evidenced
the fertility of the soil, and the thriving condition of its
inhabitants. Some three miles distant might be seen the scattered hamlet
of Rookwood; the dark russet thatch of its houses scarcely perceptible
amidst the embrowned foliage of the surroun