CHAPTER III.
A DIALOGUE AND AN ALARM .-- A STUDENT'S HOUSE.
"A fellow by the hand of Nature marked, Quoted, and signed, to do a deed of shame." -- Shakspeare .-- King John.
"He is a scholar, if a man may trust The liberal voice of Fame, in her report.
Myself was once a student, and indeed Fed with the self-same humour he is now." -- Ben Jonson .-- Every Man in his Humour.
The two sisters pursued their walk along a scene which might well be favoured by their selection.

No sooner had they crossed the stile, than the village seemed vanished into earth; so quiet, so lonely, so far from the evidence of life was the landscape through which they passed.

On their right, sloped a green and silent hill, shutting out all view beyond itself, save the deepening and twilight sky; to the left, and immediately along their road lay fragments of stone, covered with moss, or shadowed by wild shrubs, that here and there, gathered into copses, or breaking abruptly away from the rich sod, left frequent spaces through which you caught long vistas of forestland, or the brooklet gliding in a noisy and rocky course, and breaking into a thousand tiny waterfalls, or mimic eddies.

So secluded was the scene, and so unwitnessing of cultivation, that you would not have believed that a human habitation could be at hand, and this air of perfect solitude and quiet gave an additional charm to the spot.
"But I assure you," said Ellinor, earnestly continuing a conversation they had begun, "I assure you I was not mistaken, I saw it as plainly as I see you." "What, in the breast pocket ?" "Yes, as he drew out his handkerchief, I saw the barrel of the pistol quite distinctly." "Indeed, I think we had better tell my father as soon as we get home; it may be as well to be on our guard, though robbery, I believe, has not been heard of in Grassdale for these twenty years." "Yet for what purpose, save that of evil, could he in these peaceable times and this peaceable country, carry fire arms about him.

And what a countenance! Did you note the shy, and yet ferocious eye, like that of some animal, that longs, yet fears to spring upon you." "Upon my word, Ellinor," said Madeline, smiling, "you are not very merciful to strangers.