'
'You believe, then, in the late Mrs. Whitby of Lymington?'
'Seeing is believing, Claude: through laughter, and failures, and
the stupidity of half-barbarous clods, she persevered in her silk-
growing, and succeeded; and I should like to put her book into the
hands of every squire in Devon, Cornwall, and the South of Ireland.'
'Or require them to pass an examination in it, as one more among the
many books which I intend, in my ideal kingdom, all landlords to read
and digest, before they are allowed to take possession of their
estates. In the meantime, what is that noble conical hill, which has
increased my wonder at the infinite variety of beauty which The
Spirit can produce by combinations so simple as a few grey stones and
a sheet of turf?'
'The Hangman.'
'An ominous name. What is its history?'
'Some sheep-stealer, they say, clambering over a wall with his booty
slung round his neck, was literally hung by the poor brute's
struggles, and found days after on the mountain-side, a blackened
corpse on one side of the wall, with the sheep on the other, and the
ravens--You may fill up the picture for yourself.
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