what rough and remote locality all the
advantages of a refined civilization; but I doubt whether the
Shappites have been thankful for the favour. The landlord at the inn,
for one, is not thankful. Shap had been a place owing all such life
as it had possessed to coaching and posting. It had been a stage on
the high road from Lancaster to Carlisle, and though it lay high
and bleak among the fells, and was a cold, windy, thinly-populated
place,--filling all travellers with thankfulness that they had not
been made Shappites, nevertheless, it had had its glory in its
coaching and posting. I have no doubt that there are men and women
who look back with a fond regret to the palmy days of Shap.

Vavasor reached the little inn about nine in the evening on a night
that was pitchy dark, and in a wind which made it necessary for him
to hold his hat on to his head. "What a beastly country to live in,"
he said to himself, resolving that he would certainly sell Vavasor
Hall in spite of all family associations, if ever the power to do so
should be his. "What trash it is," he said, "hanging on to such a
place as that without the means of living like a gentleman, simply
because one's ancestors have done so." And then he expressed a
doubt to himself whether all the world contained a more ignorant,
opinionated, useless old man than his grandfather,--or, in short, a
greater fool.

"Well, Mr George," said the landlord as soon as he saw him, "a sight
of you's guid for sair een. It's o'er lang since you've been doon
amang the fells." But George did not want to converse with the
innkeeper, or to explain how it was that he did not visit Vavasor
Hall. The innkeeper, no doubt, knew all about it,--knew that the
grandfather had quarrelled with his grandson, and knew the reason
why; but George, if he suspected such knowledge, did not choose to
refer to it. So he simply grunted something in reply, and getting
himself in before a spark of fire which hardly was burning in a
public room with a sandy floor, begged that the little sitting-room
up-stairs might be got ready for him. There he passed the evening in
solitude, giving no encouragement to the landlord, who, nevertheless,
looked him up three or four times,--till at last George said that his
head ached, and that he would wish to be alone. "He was always one of
them cankery chiels as never have a kindly word for man nor beast,"
said the landlord. "Seems as though that raw slash in his face had
gon