They had rosy cheeks, short, sturdy legs, showing the blue stocking nearly to the knee, and were clad in long, coarse, white frocks, and had on coarse, broad-brimmed straw hats.

Their faces were partly averted.
"Please, ladies," half roguishly says Israel, taking off his hat, "does this road go to London ?" At this salutation, the two figures turned in a sort of stupid amazement, causing an almost corresponding expression in Israel, who now perceived that they were men, and not women.

He had mistaken them, owing to their frocks, and their wearing no pantaloons, only breeches hidden by their frocks.
"Beg pardon, ladies, but I thought ye were something else," said Israel again.
Once more the two figures stared at the stranger, and with added boorishness of surprise.
"Does this road go to London, gentlemen ?" "Gentlemen--egad!" cried one of the two.
"Egad!" echoed the second.
Putting their hoes before them, the two frocked boors now took a good long look at Israel, meantime scratching their heads under their plaited straw hats.
"Does it, gentlemen?
Does it go to London?
Be kind enough to tell a poor fellow, do." "Yees goin' to Lunnun, are yees?
Weel--all right--go along." And without another word, having now satisfied their rustic curiosity, the two human steers, with wonderful phlegm, applied themselves to their hoes; supposing, no doubt, that they had given all requisite information.
Shortly after, Israel passed an old, dark, mossy-looking chapel, its roof all plastered with the damp yellow dead leaves of the previous autumn, showered there from a close cluster of venerable trees, with great trunks, and overstretching branches.

Next moment he found himself entering a village.

The silence of early morning rested upon it.