“Um ’fear’d you ar’n’t well, mum, hey?”

“Thank you, I am perfectly well.”

“Are you indeed? why you set up your eyes, and looked as pale and peekin like, as if you’d seen a sperrit.”

“Did I? perhaps I was thinking; and naturally I am very pale.”

“Oh well—­um glad ’tis no wuss; but setting there as you do, with your back to the osses, ’tis the most foolishest thing in the wuld, for a sickly-like-looking cretur, as I may say yourself, to think on—­du come o’ this side.”

I declined the good woman’s proposition, alleging that riding backwards I always found the best preventive of illness from the motion of the vehicle.

“Now really,” I exclaimed she, almost aghast with astonishment, “that is curous!  But um fear’d you’re faint, though you won’t tell me so.  Here,” handing to me a large basket, well stored, I perceived, with provender, “take a happle, or a bun, or a sand_wage_, or a bit o’ gingerbread—­and a fine thing too it is for the stomach—­or a pear, or a puff, or a chiscake;—­I always take a cup of chocolate, and a slice of rich plum-cake, every morning after breakfast:  ’tis peticklar wholesome, a gentleman of my acquaintance says; and this I know, I should be dead in no time if I didn’t—­so du take something.”

I could not be so ill-natured as to reject all the offers made me by this benevolent, but uncouth gentlewoman, so accepted a sandwich, and thereby giving her, as it were, a signal to commence operations.  To work she applied herself upon the contents of her wicker store-room, with such hearty good-will, that I imagined myself secured from her volubility for at least one hour.  Alas! alas! her tongue and her teeth were, I verily believe, running a race; and when the good dame discovered that to her queries and remarks I deigned not a reply, she “just was so glad there was somebody in the coach to talk to, for ’twas the most moanfullest thing in the wuld to go journeying on and on, for long, long miles, without ever ’earing a body speak.”  I would not appear to understand my persevering friend’s insinuation, and was quickly lost in the charming description of wild, woodland scenery, afforded by one of Sir Walter’s novels:  here a slight bridge hung, as in air, between gigantic rocks, and over a foaming cataract; there, a light column of bluish, curling smoke told of the shepherd’s shieling, situated, bosomed in trees, amid some solitary pass of the mountains; here, the dark, melancholy pine reared its mournful head, companioned by the sable fir, the larch, the service-tree, and the wild cherry; there, the silvery willow laved its drooping branches in the stormy flood; whilst, with the white foam of the joyous exulting waters, all trees of beauty, majesty, and grace, rising from a richly-verdant turfing, formed a delightful contrast.  I heard the cry of the soaring eaglet, as he rose from his eyry in the rock; wild, but pleasant music was in the cool, strong wind, which flowed now roughly around, and lashed me, like the sweeping sea-wave.