“I will visit you again,” said the man in black—“till then addio.”
“Belle,” said I, after the man in black had departed, “we did not treat that man very hospitably; he left us without having eaten or drunk at our expense.”
“You offered him some tea,” said Belle, “which, as it is mine, I should have grudged him, for I like him not.”
“Our liking or disliking him had nothing to do with the matter; he was our visitor, and ought not to have
been permitted to depart dry; living as we do in this desert, we ought always to be prepared to administer to the wants of our visitors. Belle, do you know where to procure any good Hollands?”
“I think I do,” said Belle, “but—”
“I will have no ‘buts.’ Belle, I expect that with as little delay as possible you procure, at my expense, the best Hollands you can find.”
CHAPTER X.—HOW ISOPEL BERNERS AND THE WORD-MASTER PASSED THEIR TIME IN THE DINGLE.
Time passed on, and Belle and I lived in the dingle; when I say lived, the reader must not imagine that we were always there. She went out upon her pursuits, and I went out where inclination led me; but my excursions were very short ones, and hers occasionally occupied whole days and nights. If I am asked how we passed the time when we were together in the dingle, I would answer that we passed the time very tolerably, all things considered; we conversed together, and when tired of conversing I would sometimes give Belle a lesson in Armenian; her progress was not particularly brilliant, but upon the whole satisfactory; in about a fortnight she had hung up one hundred Haikan numerals upon the hake of her memory. I found her conversation highly entertaining; she had seen much of England and Wales, and had been acquainted with some of the most remarkable
characters who travelled the roads at that period; and let me be permitted to say that many remarkable characters have travelled the roads of England, of whom fame has never said a word. I loved to hear her anecdotes of these people; some of whom I found had occasionally attempted to lay violent hands either upon her person or effects, and had invariably been humbled by her without the assistance of either justice or constable. I could clearly see, however, that she was rather tired of England, and wished for a change of scene; she was particularly fond of talking of America, to which country her aspirations chiefly tended. She had heard much of America, which had excited her imagination; for at that time America was much talked of, on roads and in homesteads, at least so said Belle, who had good opportunities of knowing, and most people allowed that it was a good country for adventurous English. The people who chiefly spoke against it, as she informed me, were soldiers disbanded upon pensions, the sextons of village churches, and excisemen. Belle had a craving desire to visit that country, and to wander with cart and little animal amongst its forests; when I would occasionally object, that she would be exposed to danger from strange and perverse customers, she said that she had not wandered the roads of England so long and alone, to be afraid of anything which might befal in America; and that she hoped with God’s favour, to be able to take her own part, and to give to perverse customers as good as they might bring. She had a dauntless