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SCENE

IN THE

PEAK OF DERBYSHIRE.

VISIT TO MRS. BECKETT.

THERE are some places in the country so profoundly stagnant and eventless, that the slightest passing occurrence becomes a matter of vast concern, and is chronicled for ever. Such a scene I was witness to, or rather occasioned, a few summers ago in the Peak of Derbyshire.

On a fine summer's day I had walked across that wild district from the river Dove, on the edge of Staffordshire, on my way to Bakewell. About three o'clock in the afternoon I descended a hill towards the village of Stanstil. The day was hot, the country was open and bare, and the

roads, all of limestone, were dazzlingly white to the eye, and flung back the heat to me with burning effect. For many miles I had not found any shade to flee to. Long ridges of grey rocks, which reared themselves above the greenness of the sward, seemed to burn and glow in the sun, rather than to offer any pleasant shadow. I was both weary and consumed with thirst, for I had set out at six o'clock in the morning, and thus had been nine hours on foot. It was, therefore, with a sincere joy that I saw lying below me the village I have alluded to. I met a man ascending with his team, and asked him whether I could find a public-house where I could get some refreshment.

"Oh, yay, to be sure-down there, at th' big house at th' corner-Mester Timms's; au th' bettermost sorte o' folks goen theer!"

As I descended through the village, which was like most peak villages, of two scattered rows of heavy stone cottages, with flag-stone roofs, without trees about them, I arrived where two old men were leaning on a low garden-wall, one in the garden, the other in the road, and to them I repeated my inquiry. The answer was the

same.

"To be sure-at Mester Timms's there, at th' big house at th' corner-yo can see it.”

I saw a big house at the corner certainly, and thanking them, marched on. There, at the door of" th' big house," I found a spring-cart standing, with a little boy sitting in it, looking very ill, as if he were at the point of being taken to the doctor; and just as I reached the house-door out came a portly country dame, in a handsome black silk gown and mantilla, bonneted, as if about to take a trip.

As this appeared to be the landlady, and the mother of the invalid boy, I said, "So you are just going out?"

"Yes."

"And I," added I," am just going into your house to take some refreshment."

The portly dame instantly turned round again, entered the house before me, opened a room-door, and ushered me into a little parlour, carpeted with a sheet of lead. The fact was so singular that, having never, neither before nor since, seen such a carpet, I could not help noticing it. The good woman turned suddenly to me and said,

"And who may yer bey, pray sir?"

"Who may I be?" replied I, in astonishment at the question from a landlady to a stranger ; why myself to be sure, and that I have been

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many years; and that's what many people can't say."

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No, be-leddy, that can't they."

But," said I, "you seem curious to know who people are that come hither. Do you ask everybody that comes to your house who they are? I suppose you don't see many strangers?" Middling," said she shortly, as if rather nettled at the observation, adding, "An yo're somebody when yor a-whom, I reckon."

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"No doubt of it," I replied smiling; "but don't let me detain you. I see you are going out, and your servant can do just as well for

me."

The tall and stately woman withdrew briskly, and without another word. I saw her speaking to the maid, and out she went, mounted her spring-cart, and drove off.

The servant-maid came into the little parlour, where I had comfortably seated myself on a sofa, still contemplating the leaden carpet, which, as it is a country of lead mines, was probably considered not only a very enduring, but a very cheap one at first cost, and well adapted, in hot weather, for this purpose, from its coolness. She set me one of those small round deal threelegged tables, that you always find in public

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