As night came on, after seeing their herd safe in a field, they
naturally ate their supper at the adjacent inn. Then sometimes, as a
dainty treat with which to finish his meal, a drover would call for a
biscuit, large and hard, as broad as his hand, and, taking the tallow
candle, proceed to drip the grease on it till it was well larded and
soaked with the melted fat.

At that date, before the Government stamp had been removed from
newspapers, the roadside inn was the centre and focus of all
intelligence. When the first railway was constructed up in the North
the Okebourne folk, like the rest of the world, were with good reason
extremely curious about this wonderful invention, and questioned every
passer-by eagerly for information. But no one could describe it, till
at last a man, born in the village, but who had been away for some
years soldiering, returned to his native place. He had been serving in
Canada and came through Liverpool, and thus saw the marvel of the age.
At the Sun the folk in the evening crowded round him, and insisted
upon knowing what a steam-engine was like. He did his best to describe
it, but in vain; they wanted a familiar illustration, and could not be
satisfied till the soldier, by a happy inspiration, said the only
thing to which he could compare a locomotive was a great cannon on a
timber-carriage. To us who are so accustomed to railways it seems a
singular idea; but, upon reflection, it was not so inapt, considering
that the audience had seen or heard something of cannons, and were
well acquainted with timber-carriages. The soldier wished to convey
the notion of a barrel or boiler mounted on wheels.

They kept up the institution of the parish constable, as separate and
distinct from the policeman, till very recently at Okebourne, though
it seems to have lapsed long since in many country places. One year
Hilary, with much shrugging of shoulders, was forced into the office;
and during his term there was a terrible set-to between two tribes of
gipsies in the Overboro' road. They fought like tigers, making the
lovely summer day hideous with their cries and shrieks--the women, the
fiercer by far, tearing each other's hair. One fiendish creature drew
her scissors, and, using them like a stiletto, drove the sharp point
into a sister 'gip's' head.

'Where's the constable?' was the cry. Messengers rushed to Lucketts'
Place; the barn, the sheds, the hayfield, all were searched in
vain--Hilary had qu