d.

"Oh, God!" she moaned, "has it come to this!"

The next minute Netta was clinging to her, and they wept in unison as
the sound of wheels was heard; and Sam Jenkles apostrophised his ugly
steed.

"Ratty," he said, "I wonder what it feels like to be a fool--whether
it's what I feels just now?"

There was a crack of the whip here, and the hansom trundled along.

"How many half-pints are there in thirty bob, I wonder?" said Sam again.

And then, as he turned into the main road at Upper Holloway, he pulled
up short--to the left London, to the right over the hills to the
country.

"Not above four or five mile, Ratty, and then there'll be no missus to
meet. Ratty, old man, I think I'd better drive myself to Colney Hatch."

Volume 1, Chapter VI.

ALL AMONG THE FERNS.

An autumn morning in a lane. A very prosaic beginning. But there are
lanes and lanes; so let not the reader imagine a dreary, clayey way
between two low-cropped hedges running right across the flat landscape
with mathematical severity, and no more exciting object in view than a
heap of broken stones ready for repairs. Our lane is a very different
affair, for it is a Cornish lane.

Do you know what a Cornish lane is like--a lane in a valley? Perhaps
not; so we will describe the winding road, where, basket in hand, Tiny
and Fin Rea, walking home, were seeking ferns.

In this land of granite, a clear field is an exception--the great bare
bones of earth peer out in all directions; and however severe the taste
of the first maker of a beaten track, unless he were ready with
engineering tools and blasting appliances, instead of making his way
straight forward, he would have to go round and dodge about, to avoid
the masses of stone. Hence, then, many of the lanes wind and double
between piled-up heaps of granite, through steep gorges, and rise and
fall in the most eccentric way; while--Nature having apparently scoured
the hill-tops, and swept the fertile soil into the vales along these
dell-like lanes--the verdure is thick and dense; trees interlace
overhead till you walk in a pale green twilight flecked with golden
rays; damp dripping stones are covered with velvet moss; a tiny spring
trickles here, and forms crystal pools, mirroring delicate fronds of
fern; gnarled oaks twist tortuous trunks in the great banks, and throw
distorted arms across the road; half hidden from sight--here five, there
fifty feet below the _toad_--a rapid stream goes musi