However, as this food and shelter is perhaps more honestly obtained than those little dinners which I have so often eaten with the great Horatio, I will try to fancy a sweetness in the tough steaks and greasy legs of mutton.

O sheep of Midlandshire! why cultivate such ponderous calves, and why so incline to sinews?
O cooks of Midlandshire! why so superficial in the treatment of your roasts, so impetuous and inconsiderate when you boil?
A railroad now penetrates the rural district in which the village of Dewsdale is situated.

There is a little station, something like a wooden Dutch oven, within a mile of the village; and here I alighted.
The morning savoured of summer rather than autumn.

The air was soft and balmy, the sunshine steeped the landscape in warm light, and the red and golden tints of the fading foliage took new splendour from that yellow sunshine.

A man whose life is spent in cities must be dull of soul indeed if he does not feel a little touched by the beauty of rustic scenery, when he finds himself suddenly in the heart of the country.