And Need and Misery, Vice and Danger, bind,
In sad alliance, each degraded mind.
As our traveller set out early on the ensuing morning to prosecute her journey,
and was in the act of leaving the innyard, Dick Ostler, who either had risen early
or neglected to go to bed, either circumstance being equally incident to his
calling, hollowed out after her,--"The top of the morning to you, Moggie. Have a
care o' Gunderby Hill, young one. Robin Hood's dead and gwone, but there be
takers yet in the vale of Bever. Jeanie looked at him as if to request a farther
explanation, but, with a leer, a shuffle, and a shrug, inimitable (unless by
Emery*), Dick turned again to the raw-boned steed which he was currying, and
sung as he employed the comb and brush,--
"Robin Hood was a yeoman right good,
And his bow was of trusty yew;
And if Robin said stand on the king's lea-land,
Pray, why should not we say so too?"
* [John Emery, an eminent comedian, played successfully at Covent Garden
Theatre between 1798 and 1820. Among his characters, were those of Dandie
Dinmont in Guy Mannering, Dougal in Rob Roy, and Ratcliffe in the Heart of Mid-
Lothian.]
Jeanie pursued her journey without farther inquiry, for there was nothing in Dick's
manner that inclined her to prolong their conference. A painful day's journey
brought her to Ferrybridge, the best inn, then and since, upon the great northern
road; and an introduction from Mrs. Bickerton, added to her own simple and quiet
manners, so propitiated the landlady of the Swan in her favour, that the good
dame procured her the convenient accommodation of a pillion and post-horse
then returning to Tuxford, so that she accomplished, upon the second day after
leaving York, the longest journey she had yet made. She was a good deal
fatigued by a mode of travelling to which she was less accustomed than to
walking, and it was considerably later than usual on the ensuing morning that she
felt herself able to resume her pilgrimage. At noon the hundred-armed Trent, and
the blackened ruins of Newark Castle, demolished in the great civil war, lay
before her. It may easily be supposed, that Jeanie had no curiosity to make
antiquarian researches, but, entering the town, went straight to the inn to which
she had been directed at Ferrybridge. While she procured some refreshment,
she observed the girl who brought it to her, looked at her several times with fixed
and peculiar interest, and at last, to her infinite surprise, inquired if her name was
not Deans, and if she was not a Scotchwoman, going to London upon justice
business. Jeanie, with all her simplicity of character, had some of the caution of
