oad. Hobbs, however, was usually up to time,
fair weather and foul, and this was the first time his master had been
called on to go for the letters.

Walking down the road, Mr Sudberry whistled an extremely operatic air,
in the contentment of his heart, and glanced from side to side, with a
feeling amounting almost to affection, at the various objects which had
now become quite familiar to him, and with many of which he had
interesting associations.

There was the miniature hut, on the roof of which he usually laid his
rod on returning from a day's fishing. There was the rude stone bridge
over the burn, on the low parapet of which he and the family were wont
to sit on fine evenings, and commune of fishing, and boating, and
climbing, and wonder whether it would be possible ever again to return
to the humdrum life of London. There was the pool in the same burn over
which one day he, reckless man, had essayed to leap, and into which he
had tumbled, when in eager pursuit of Jacky. A little below this was
the pool into which the said Jacky had rushed in wild desperation on
finding that his father was too fleet for him. Passing through a
five-barred gate into the next field, he skirted the base of a high,
precipitous crag, on which grew a thicket of dwarf-trees and shrubs, and
at the foot of which the burn warbled. Here, on his left, stood the
briar bush out of which had _whirred_ the first live grouse he ever set
eyes on. It was at this bird, that, in the madness of his excitement,
he had flung first his stick, then his hat, and lastly his shout of
disappointment and defiance. A little further on was that other bush
out of which he had started so many grouse that he now never approached
it without a stone in each hand, his eyes and nostrils dilated, and his
breath restrained. He never by any chance on these occasions sent his
artillery within six yards of the game; but once, when he approached the
bush in a profound reverie, and without the usual preparation, he
actually saw a bird crouching in the middle of it! To seize a large
stone and hit the ground at least forty yards beyond the bush was the
work of a moment. Up got the bird with a tremendous whizz! He flung
his stick wildly, and, hitting it, (by chance), fair on the head,
brought it down. To rush at it, fall on it, crush it almost flat, and
rise up slowly holding it very tight, was the result of this successful
piece of poaching. Another result was a ch