n the papers.

CHAPTER XXII.

AN INCIDENT BY THE WAYSIDE.

"Take physic, pomp!
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the Heavens more just."
--King Lear.

On the Saturday after my return from Wigan, a little incident fell
in my way, which I thought worth taking note of at the time; and
perhaps it may not be uninteresting to your readers. On that day I
went up to Levenshulme, to spend the afternoon with an old friend of
mine, a man of studious habits, living in a retired part of that
green suburb. The time went pleasantly by whilst I was with the calm
old student, conversing upon the state of Lancashire, and the
strange events which are upheaving the civilised world in great
billows of change,--and drinking in the peaceful charm which
pervaded everything about the man and his house and the scene which
it stood in.

After tea, he came with me across the fields to the "Midway Inn," on
Stockport Road, where the omnibuses call on their way to Manchester.
It was a lovely evening, very clear and cool, and twilight was
sinking upon the scene. Waiting for the next omnibus, we leaned
against the long wooden watering-trough in front of the inn. The
irregular old building looked picturesque in the soft light of
declining day, and all around was so still that we could hear the
voices of bowlers who were lingering upon the green, off at the
north side of the house, and retired from the highway by an
intervening garden. The varied tones of animation, and the phrases
uttered by the players, on different parts of the green, came
through the quiet air with a cheery ring. The language of the
bowling-green sounds very quaint to people unused to the game. "Too
much land, James!" cries one. "Bravo, bully-bowl! That's th' first
wood! Come again for more!" cries another. "Th' wrong bias, John!"
"How's that?" "A good road; but it wants legs! Narrow; narrow, o' to
pieces!" These, and such like phrases of the game, came distinctly
from the green into the highway that quiet evening. And here I am
reminded, as I write, that the philosophic Doctor Dalton was a
regular bowler upon Tattersall's green, at Old Trafford. These
things, however, are all aside from the little matters which I wish
to tell.

As we stood by the watering-trough, listening to the voices of the
bowlers, and to the occasional ringing of bells mingled with a low
buzz of merriment inside the house, there