On the next day, quite early in the morning, I set out in a dog-cart for Reading, having a _rendezvous_ with Barisbroke at the Kennet's mouth, whence we were to start for a day's sport upon that fish-breeding river. My drive took me by the old Bath-road, turning to the left midway up the village street; but I had not gone very far upon the Reading-road before I saw the handsome woman--the wife, as I assumed, of the velvet-coated man--now dressed with exceeding poorness, and carrying a heavy bag towards the biscuit town. At this point the sun beat early upon the sandy way with a shimmer of white and misty light, which promised great heat of the forenoon; there was scarce a quiver of wind in the woods to the left of me, and I did not doubt that walking was a great labor. Yet, when I reined in the cob, and asked the woman, if at least I might not carry her bag to Reading and leave it for her, she thanked me somewhat curtly, I thought, and evidently resented any notice of her difficulty. It occurred to me, as I drove on, that the man, who had been with her on the previous day, had really left by the last train for London; but when I came into Reading, and was about to cross the High Street, to reach Earleigh, I saw the name Benjamin Wain superscribed above a little chemist's shop, and I stopped at once. I know that a country tradesman will gossip like a fishwife; and I asked the man for some preparation which he could not possibly find in the pharmacopoeia, and so began to feel my ground.
"You're well ahead of the times here," said I, looking at his show-case, which was wofully destitute of drugs. "I shouldn't have thought that you'd be asked for tabloids in a place like Reading."
"Oh, but we are," said he, readily; "it's a wonderfully advanced town is Reading--you won't get much in Regent Street which is not here. I've lived in Reading all my life--and seen changes, sir, indeed I have!"
"You know most of the people then?" said I, with a purpose.
"Ay," said he, "I've born and buried a many, so to speak; seen children grow to men and women, and men and women grow to children--you wouldn't think it perhaps!"
"No," said I, "you don't show it; but your reputation, if I may say so, goes beyond this place. I was in Pangbourne yesterday, where a tall, yellow-haired man was speaking of you; who is he, I wonder?"
