one of life's crossing-places. Here I
beheld one man, already famous or infamous, a centre of pistol-shots;
and another who, if not yet known to rumour, will fill a column of the
Sunday paper when he comes to hang--a burly, thick-set, powerful Chinese
desperado, six long bristles upon either lip; redolent of whisky,
playing-cards, and pistols; swaggering in the bar with the lowest
assumption of the lowest European manners; rapping out blackguard
English oaths in his canorous oriental voice; and combining in one
person the depravities of two races and two civilisations. For all his
lust and vigour, he seemed to look cold upon me from the valley of the
shadow of the gallows. He imagined a vain thing; and while he drained
his cocktail, Holbein's death was at his elbow. Once, too, I fell in
talk with another of these flitting strangers--like the rest, in his
shirt-sleeves and all begrimed with dust--and the next minute we were
discussing Paris and London, theatres and wines. To him, journeying from
one human place to another, this was a trifle; but to me! No, Mr.
Lillie, I have not forgotten it.

And presently the city-tide was at its flood and began to ebb. Life runs
in Piccadilly Circus, say, from nine to one, and then, there also, ebbs
into the small hours of the echoing policeman and the lamps and stars.
But the Toll House is far up stream, and near its rural springs; the
bubble of the tide but touches it. Before you had yet grasped your
pleasure, the horses were put to, the loud whips volleyed, and the tide
was gone. North and south had the two stages vanished, the towering dust
subsided in the woods; but there was still an interval before the flush
had fallen on your cheeks, before the ear became once more contented
with the silence, or the seven sleepers of the Toll House dozed back to
their accustomed corners. Yet a little, and the ostler would swing round
the great barrier across the road; and in the golden evening, that
dreamy inn begin to trim its lamps and spread the board for supper.

As I recall the place--the green dell below; the spires of pine; the
sun-warm, scented air; that grey, gabled inn, with its faint stirrings
of life amid the slumber of the mountains--I slowly awake to a sense of
admiration, gratitude, and almost love. A fine place, after all, for a
wasted life to doze away in--the cuckoo clock hooting of its far home
country; the croquet mallets, eloquent of English lawns; the stages
daily bring