Earl Brandir was greatly pleased with me, not only for having saved his life, but for saving that which he valued more, the wealth laid by for Lord Alan.  And he introduced me to many great people, who quite kindly encouraged me, and promised to help me in every way when they heard how the King had spoken.  As for the furrier, he could never have enough of my society; and this worthy man, praying my commendation, demanded of me one thing only—­to speak of him as I found him.  As I had found him many a Sunday, furbishing up old furs for new, with a glaze to conceal the moths’ ravages, I begged him to reconsider the point, and not to demand such accuracy.  He said, “Well, well; all trades had tricks, especially the trick of business; and I must take him—­if I were his true friend—­according to his own description.”  This I was glad enough to do; because it saved so much trouble, and I had no money to spend with him.  But still he requested the use of my name; and I begged him to do the best with it, as I never had kept a banker.  And the “John Ridd cuffs,” and the “Sir John mantles,” and the “Holly-staff capes,” he put into his window, as the winter was coming on, ay and sold (for everybody was burning with gossip about me), must have made this good man’s fortune; since the excess of price over value is the true test of success in life.

To come away from all this stuff, which grieves a man in London—­when the brisk air of the autumn cleared its way to Ludgate Hill, and clever ’prentices ran out, and sniffed at it, and fed upon it (having little else to eat); and when the horses from the country were a goodly sight to see, with the rasp of winter bristles rising through and among the soft summer-coat; and when the new straw began to come in, golden with the harvest gloss, and smelling most divinely at those strange livery-stables, where the nags are put quite tail to tail; and when all the London folk themselves are asking about white frost (from recollections of childhood); then, I say, such a yearning seized me for moory crag, and for dewy blade, and even the grunting of our sheep (when the sun goes down), that nothing but the new wisps of Samson could have held me in London town.

Lorna was moved with equal longing towards the country and country ways; and she spoke quite as much of the glistening dew as she did of the smell of our oven.  And here let me mention—­although the two are quite distinct and different—­that both the dew and the bread of Exmoor may be sought, whether high or low, but never found elsewhere.  The dew is so crisp, and pure, and pearly, and in such abundance; and the bread is so sweet, so kind, and homely, you can eat a loaf, and then another.