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A few yards beyond the inn the same story of hard times was repeated. A man was sauntering along the road with his hands in his pockets, evidently caring very little for anybody, after the fashion of most Derbyshire folks. Nowhere is there a more "independent' set of men and women. I took the liberty of remarking to this man that it was a fine morning.

"It is, sir. It will be lucky for the poor farmers if it lasts.'

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They have been doing badly about here, have they?" Losing money, sir, although they get the farms cheap. The Duke is an easy landlord, and if he were not it would be bad for us all."

"Pray what trade are you?"

"Me, sir? Well, I am a little bit of everything. Sometimes I turn-to at shoemaking, and sometimes I do a little gardening. Sometimes I work as a mason, and sometimes I go out with gentlemen fishing. I never know what I shall do next week."

A little child here ran out of a cottage to meet him, and he took it up and kissed it.

"Is this one of your children?" I asked.

"It is not, sir," said the man, "for I am not married -and I have no children," he added, after a little pause, as if thinking that his first statement was not complete.

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Well, perhaps you are lucky."

"I generally think so, sir, though I don't know. Might be better and might be worse-can't tell nowt about it. Are you married, sir?"

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The man surveyed me carefully, and said, "I should say-No, you are not."

66 What makes you think that?"

"Because you seem to be pretty well contented, and able to enjoy yourself, and like wandering about the country, for I have seen you several times lately, and always alone."

"And married men are not like that?"

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"Then that settles the matter," said I, for I hate to contradict anybody.

CHAPTER IV.

BAKEWELL TO BUXTON AND AXE EDGE.

Fishing in the Wye.-Bakewell Church.-Dorothy Vernon.--Ashford in the Water.-Monsal Dale.-Chee Tor.-Buxton and its Waters.-A Town of Invalids.-A Road to the Moors. --The "Cat and Fiddle."-A Quiver full of Arrows.-Shining Tor.Axe Edge.--The Source of Four Rivers.

THERE is a very fair inn at Bakewell, once much resorted to by anglers, but the fish are gone, and the anglers have followed them. Perhaps at the very beginning of the season a few trout of fair size may be caught in the Wye near Bakewell, but as a rule the stream is most unmercifully whipped all day long, and probably poached at night, so that the fishing is now scarcely worth wasting any time and trouble over. But there are always rods ready for the stranger in the hall of the "Rutland Arms," and for the first evening of his stay he may find some amusement in trying to persuade himself that he can catch a fish or two, but he had better make all his arrangements for dinner independently of his own dish of trout. The old church is better worth a visit than the river. Here sleeps the Dorothy Vernon whose elopement from

Haddon Hall has given her a fame which probably she never coveted, and would much rather not have had. It all arises from her having gone down a pretty staircase on the night of her flight into a picturesque garden. Had she eloped from an ordinary house, nobody would have said anything about it. There is a hint in this which ladies with a weakness for the romantic should not overlook. Poor Dorothy has been the theme of innumerable poems, sonnets, and pictures, and all because she did not go out by the front door when Sir John Manners ran away with her. In Bakewell Church, however, she sleeps at peace-few of the rhymesters or sentimental tourists are aware that she was laid there. The old cross in the churchyard will remind the traveller of the one at Eyam, and he will be interested with the Foljambe monument, dating as far back as 1366. When he has looked at all these, and climbed the hill on the other side of the valley, and seen what a new and beautiful view of Chatsworth it has given him, he will be ready for his little journey to Buxton. this he had better begin by driving to Ashford in the Water, for there is nothing worth lingering over between Bakewell and that village, and the turnpike road is likely to become tiresome. This will leave him about twelve miles to walk, or if he strikes off from Miller's Dale for Tideswell, five miles more.

And

Ashford has a neater and cleaner look than most villages in Derbyshire, and some old customs-the ringing of the curfew among them-still survive in it.

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