ad looked at the paper, he winked with one eye, extended his
grotesque mouth from ear to ear, like a navigable canal, scratched his
head powerfully, and then said, "Ken!--ay--maybe we ken summat, an it
werena for harm to him, mistress!"

"None in the world," said Mrs. Bickerton; "only a dram of Hollands to
thyself, man, an thou wilt speak."

"Why, then," said Dick, giving the head-band of his breeches a knowing
hoist with one hand, and kicking out one foot behind him to accommodate
the adjustment of that important habiliment, "I dares to say the pass
will be kend weel eneugh on the road, an that be all."

"But what sort of a lad was he?" said Mrs. Bickerton, winking to Jeanie,
as proud of her knowing Ostler.

"Why, what ken I?--Jim the Rat--why he was Cock o' the North within this
twelmonth--he and Scotch Wilson, Handle Dandie, as they called him--but
he's been out o' this country a while, as I rackon; but ony gentleman, as
keeps the road o' this side Stamford, will respect Jim's pass."

Without asking farther questions, the landlady filled Dick Ostler a
bumper of Hollands. He ducked with his head and shoulders, scraped with
his more advanced hoof, bolted the alcohol, to use the learned phrase,
and withdrew to his own domains.

"I would advise thee, Jeanie," said Mrs. Bickerton, "an thou meetest with
ugly customers o' the road, to show them this bit paper, for it will
serve thee, assure thyself."

A neat little supper concluded the evening. The exported Scotswoman, Mrs.
Bickerton by name, ate heartily of one or two seasoned dishes, drank some
sound old ale, and a glass of stiff negus; while she gave Jeanie a
history of her gout, admiring how it was possible that she, whose fathers
and mothers for many generations had been farmers in Lammermuir, could
have come by a disorder so totally unknown to them. Jeanie did not choose
to offend her friendly landlady, by speaking her mind on the probable
origin of this complaint; but she thought on the flesh-pots of Egypt,
and, in spite of all entreaties to better fare, made her evening meal
upon vegetables, with a glass of fair water.

Mrs. Bickerton assured her, that the acceptance of any reckoning was
entirely out of the question, furnished her with credentials to her
correspondent in London, and to several inns upon the road where she had
some influence or interest, reminded her of the precautions she should
adopt for concealing her money, and as she was to depart early