l."

"It must have taken you a long while to dig that pit, Humphrey."

"Yes, it did, and as I got deeper the work was harder, and then I had to
carry away all the earth and scatter it about. I was more than a month
about it from the time that I began till it was finished, and I had a
ladder to go up and down by at last, and carried the baskets of earth
up, for it was too deep to throw it out."

"Nothing like patience and perseverance, Humphrey. You've more than I
have."

"I'm sure he has more than I have, or shall ever have, I'm afraid,"
replied Edward.

During this winter, which passed rapidly away, very few circumstances of
any consequence occurred. Old Jacob was more or less confined to the
cottage by the rheumatism, and Edward hunted either by himself or
occasionally with Humphrey. Humphrey was fortunate enough to take a
bull and cow-calf in his pit-fall, both of them about a year or fifteen
months old, and by a rude invention of his, by way of windlass,
contrived, with the assistance of Edward, to hoist them uninjured out of
the pit. They were put into the yard, and after having been starved
till they were tamed, they followed the example of the heifer and calf,
and became quite tame. These were an important addition to their stock,
as may well be imagined. The only mishap under which they laboured was,
old Jacob's confinement to the cottage, which, as the winter advanced,
prevented him from going to Lymington; they could not therefore sell any
venison, and Humphrey, by way of experiment, smoked some venison hams,
which he hung up with the others. There was another point on which they
felt anxiety, which was, that Jacob could not cross the forest to get
the puppies which had been promised them, and the time was past, for it
was now January, when he was to have called for them. Edward and
Humphrey pressed the old man very hard to let one of them go; but the
only answer they could obtain was, "that he'd be better soon." At last,
finding that he got worse instead of better, he consented that Edward
should go. He gave directions how to proceed, the way he was to take,
and a description of the keeper's lodge; cautioned him to call himself
by the name of Armitage, and describe himself as his grandson. Edward
promised to obey Jacob's directions, and the next morning he set off,
mounted upon White Billy, with a little money in his pocket, in case he
should want it.

"I wish I was going with you," said Hu