It was indeed a picturesque spot, by which the carriage was now rapidly whirling. A few miles from Maidenhead, on the Henley road, our readers will probably remember a small track of forest-like land, lying on either side of the road. To the left, the green waste bears away among trees and bushes; and one skilled in the country may pass from that spot, through a landscape as little tenanted as green Sherwood was formerly, into the chains of wild common and deep beech-woods which border a certain portion of Oxfordshire, and contrast so beautifully the general characteristics of that county.
At the time we speak of, the country was even far wilder than it is now, and just on that point where the Henley and the Reading roads unite was a spot (communicating then with the waste land we have described) than which perhaps few places could be more adapted to the purposes of such true men as have recourse to the primary law of nature. Certain it was, that at this part of the road Mauleverer looked more anxiously from his window than he had hitherto done, and apparently
