nd, likely enough, throttled the
traditional grey goose. The farmer watches for the frozen thatch to drip;
the gentleman visiting the stable looks up disconsolately at the icicles
dependent from the slated eave with the same hope. The sight of a stray
seagull wandering inland is gladly welcomed, as the harbinger of drenching
clouds sweeping up on soft south-westerly gales from the nearest coast.

The hunt is up once more, and so short are the hours of the day in the
dead of the year, that early night often closes round the chase. From out
of the gloom and the mist comes the distant note of the horn, with a weird
and old-world sound. By-and-by the labourer, trudging homeward, is
overtaken by a hunter whose horse's neck droops with weariness. His boots
are splashed with mud, his coat torn by the thorns. He is a visitor,
vainly trying to find his way home, having come some ten or fifteen miles
across country since the morning. The labourer shows the route--the
longest way round is the shortest at night--and as they go listens eagerly
to the hunter's tale of the run. At the cross roads they part with mutual
goodwill towards each other, and a shilling, easily earned, pays that
night for the cottager's pipe and glass of ale.

CHAPTER IX

THE FINE LADY FARMER. COUNTRY GIRLS

A pair of well-matched bays in silver-plated harness, and driven by a
coachman in livery, turn an easy curve round a corner of the narrow
country road, forcing you to step on the sward by the crimson-leaved
bramble bushes, and sprinkling the dust over the previously glossy surface
of the newly fallen horse chestnuts. Two ladies, elegantly dressed, lounge
in the carriage with that graceful idleness--that indifferent
indolence--only to be acquired in an atmosphere of luxury. Before they
pass out of sight round another turn of the road it is possible to observe
that one at least possesses hair of the fashionable hue, and a complexion
delicately brilliant--whether wholly natural or partly aided by art. The
other must be pronounced a shade less rich in the colours of youth, but is
perhaps even more expensively dressed. An experienced observer would at
once put them down as mother and daughter, as, indeed, they are.

The polished spokes of the wheels glitter in the sun, the hoofs of the
high-stepping pair beat the firm road in regular cadence, and smoothly the
carriage rolls on till the brown beech at the corner hides it. But a sense
of wealt