The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth - A complete eBook in pages (261 / 300)

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The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth
Book, page 261 / 300

'Well, my good woman,' interrupted Lord Colambre, who was little
interested in this affair of the mouse-trap, and nowise curious
to learn more of Mr. Reynolds's domestic economy, 'I'll not
trouble you any farther, if you can be so good as to tell me the
road to Toddrington, or to Little Wickham, I think you call it.'

Little Wickham!' repeated the woman, laughing--' Bless you, sir,
where do you come from?--It's Little Wrestham; surely everybody
knows, near Lantry; and keep the PIKE till you come to the turn
at Rotherford, and then you strike off into the by-road to the
left, and then again turn at the ford to the right. But, if you
are going to Toddrington, you don't go the road to market, which
is at the first turn to the left, and the cross-country road,
where there's no quarter, and Toddrington lies--but for Wrestham,
you take the road to market.'

It was some time before our hero could persuade the old woman to
stick to Little Wrestham, or to Toddrington, and not to mix the
directions for the different roads together--he took patience,
for his impatience only confused his director the more. In
process of time, he made out, and wrote down, the various turns
that he was to follow, to reach Little Wrestham; but no human
power could get her from Little Wrestham to Toddrington, though
she knew the road perfectly well; but she had, for the seventeen
last years, been used to go 'the other road,' and all the
carriers went that way, and passed the door, and that was all she
could certify.

Little Wrestham, after turning to the left and right as often as
his directory required, our hero happily reached; but, unhappily,
he found no Mr. Reynolds there; only a steward, who gave nearly
the same account of his master as had been given by the old
woman, and could not guess even where the gentleman might now be.
Toddrington was as likely as any place--but he could not say.

'Perseverance against fortune.' To Toddrington our hero
proceeded, through cross-country roads--such roads!--very
different from the Irish roads. Waggon ruts, into which the
carriage wheels sunk nearly to the nave--and, from time to time,

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