Good-day, landlord." "Good-day, sir, and a pleasant ride to 'ee." And now, my boys, you whom I want to get for readers, have you had enough?
Will you give in at once, and say you're convinced, and let me begin my story, or will you have more of it?
Remember, I've only been over a little bit of the hillside yet--what you could ride round easily on your ponies in an hour.

I'm only just come down into the Vale, by Blowing Stone Hill; and if I once begin about the Vale, what's to stop me?
You'll have to hear all about Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred, and Farringdon, which held out so long for Charles the First (the Vale was near Oxford, and dreadfully malignant--full of Throgmortons, Puseys, and Pyes, and such like; and their brawny retainers).

Did you ever read Thomas Ingoldsby's "Legend of Hamilton Tighe"?
If you haven't, you ought to have.

Well, Farringdon is where he lived, before he went to sea; his real name was Hamden Pye, and the Pyes were the great folk at Farringdon.

Then there's Pusey.