some hatches and a weir, stood a little
square building, not much larger inside than the Lord Mayor's coach. It
was known simply as 'The Weir House.' On this wet afternoon, which was
the one following the day of Christopher's last lesson over the plain, a
nearly invisible smoke came from the puny chimney of the hut. Though the
door was closed, sounds of chatting and mirth fizzed from the interior,
and would have told anybody who had come near--which nobody did--that the
usually empty shell was tenanted to-day.

The scene within was a large fire in a fireplace to which the whole floor
of the house was no more than a hearthstone. The occupants were two
gentlemanly persons, in shooting costume, who had been traversing the
moor for miles in search of wild duck and teal, a waterman, and a small
spaniel. In the corner stood their guns, and two or three wild mallards,
which represented the scanty product of their morning's labour, the
iridescent necks of the dead birds replying to every flicker of the fire.
The two sportsmen were smoking, and their man was mostly occupying
himself in poking and stirring the fire with a stick: all three appeared
to be pretty well wetted.

One of the gentlemen, by way of varying the not very exhilarating study
of four brick walls within microscopic distance of his eye, turned to a
small square hole which admitted light and air to the hut, and looked out
upon the dreary prospect before him. The wide concave of cloud, of the
monotonous hue of dull pewter, formed an unbroken hood over the level
from horizon to horizon; beneath it, reflecting its wan lustre, was the
glazed high-road which stretched, hedgeless and ditchless, past a
directing-post where another road joined it, and on to the less regular
ground beyond, lying like a riband unrolled across the scene, till it
vanished over the furthermost undulation. Beside the pools were
occasional tall sheaves of flags and sedge, and about the plain a few
bushes, these forming the only obstructions to a view otherwise unbroken.

The sportsman's attention was attracted by a figure in a state of gradual
enlargement as it approached along the road.

'I should think that if pleasure can't tempt a native out of doors to-
day, business will never force him out,' he observed. 'There is, for the
first time, somebody coming along the road.'

'If business don't drag him out pleasure'll never tempt en, is more like
our nater in these parts, sir,' said