quest, last autumn, of a nice quiet place
within a convenient distance of town, where
I could finish an epic poem—or, stay, was
it a five act drama?—on which I had been
long engaged, and where I could be secure
from the annoyance of organ grinders, and
of reverend gentlemen leaving little
subscription books one day, and calling for
them the next—I should like to know
what difference there is between them and
the people who leave the packets of steel
pens, and the patent lamp-globe protector,
and Bullinger's History of the Inquisition,
under the special patronage of the
Archbishop of Tobago, to be continued in
monthly parts—together with the people
who want your autograph, and others who
want money, and things of that kind. I
pined for a place where one could be very
snug, and where one's friends didn't drop
in "just to look you up, old fellow;" and
where the post didn't come in too often.
So I packed up a bag of needments, and
availing myself of a mid-day train, on the
Great Domdaniel Railway, alighted
haphazard at a station.

It turned out to be Sobbington. I saw
at a glance that Sobbington was too
fashionable, not to say stuck up, for me.
The Waltz from Faust was pianofortetically
audible from at least half-a-dozen
semi-detached windows; and this, combined
with some painful variations on "Take
then the Sabre," and a cursory glance into
a stationer's shop and fancy warehouse,
where two stern mammas, of low church
aspect, were purchasing the back numbers
of the New Pugwell-square Pulpit, and
three young ladies were telegraphically
enquiring, behind their parents' backs, of the
young person at the counter, whether any
letters had been left for them, sufficed to
accelerate my departure from Sobbington.
The next station on the road, I was told,
was Doleful-hill, and then came Deadwood
Junction. I thought I would take a little
walk, and see what the open and what the
covert yielded. I left my bag with a
moody porter at the Sobbington station,
and trudged along the road which had
been indicated to me as leading to Doleful-
hill. It happened to be a very splendid
afternoon. There were patches of golden
and of purple gorse skirting those parts of
the road in which the semi-detached villa
eruption had not yet broken out; the
distant hills were delicately blue, and the
mellow sun was distilling his rays into
diamonds and rubies on the roof of a
wondrous Palace of Glass, which does duty
in these parts, as Vesuvius does duty in
Naples, as a pervading presence. At
Portici, and at Torre del Greco, at
Sobbington, or at Doleful-hill, turn whithersoever
you will, the Mountain seems close
upon you, always.

It is true that I was a little dashed, when
I encountered an organ grinder lugubriously
winding, "Slap bang, here we are
again!" off his brazen reel, and looking
anything but a jolly dog. Organ grinding
was contrary to the code I had laid
down to govern my retirement. But
the autumnal sun shone very genially on
this child of the Sunny South—who had
possibly come from the bleakest part of
Piedmont—his smile was of the sunniest,
likewise, and there was a roguish twinkle
in his black eyes, and, though his cheeks
were brown, his teeth were of the whitest.
So, as I gave him pence, I determined
inwardly, that I would tolerate at least one
organ grinder if he came near where I
lived. It is true that I had not the
remotest idea of where I was going to live.

I walked onwards and onwards,
admiring the pied cows in the far off pastures
—cows, the white specks on whose hides
occurred so artistically, that one might have
thought, that the scenic arrangement of the
landscape had been entrusted to Mr. Birket
Foster.

Anon I saw coming towards me a butcher
boy in his cart, drawn by a fast trotting
pony. It was a light high spring cart,
very natty and shiny, with the names and
addresses of the proprietors, Messrs. Hock,
butchers to the royal family, West Deadwood
—which of the princes or princesses
reside at West Deadwood, I wonder?—
emblazoned on the panels. The butcher
boy shone, too, with a suety sheen. The
joints which formed his cargo, were of the
hue of which an English girl's cheeks
should be: pure red and white. And the
good sun, shone upon all. The equipage
came rattling along at a high trot, the
butcher squaring his arms and whistling—
I could see him whistle from afar off. I
asked him when he neared me how far it
might be to Doleful-hill.

"Good two mile," quoth the butcher
boy, pulling up. "Steady, you warmint."
This was to the trotting pony. "But," he
continued, "you'll have to pass Wretchedville
first. Lays in a 'ole a little to the
left, arf a mile on."

"Wretchedville," thought I; "what an
odd name. What sort of a place is it?" I
enquired.