ng for you already. You are coming down to Kerton with
us. We have just got our long leave, and our horses went down three days
ago."

"It's very nice of him to say 'our horses,'" interrupted Forrester.
"Mine consist of one young one, that has been over about eight fences in
his life, and a mare, that I call the Wandering Jewess, for I don't
think she will ever die, and I am sure she will never rest till she
does: what with being park-hack in the summer and cover-hack in the
winter, with a by-day now and then when the country's light, she's the
best instance of perpetual motion I know. Well, it's not my fault the
chief won't let us hunt our second chargers--that's the charm of being
in a crack regiment--I always have one lame at least, and no one will
sell me hunters on tick."

"Don't be so plaintive, Charley; you've nearly all mine to ride: it's a
treat to them, poor things, to feel your light weight and hand, after
carrying my enormous carcass. That's settled, then, Frank; you come with
us?" Guy said.

"I shall be very glad. I only want a day to get my traps together." So
two days afterward we three came down to Kerton Manor. It was not my
first visit to Livingstone's home, but I have not described it before.

Fancy a very large, low house, built in two quadrangles--the offices and
stables forming the smaller one farthermost from the main entrance--of
the light gray stone common in Northamptonshire, darkened at the angles
and buttresses into purple, and green, and bistre by the storms of three
hundred years; on the south side, smooth turf, with islands in it of
bright flower-beds, sloped down to a broad, slow stream, where grave,
stately swans were always sailing to and fro, and moor-hens diving among
the rushes; on the other sides, a park, extensive, but somewhat
rough-looking, stretched away, and, all round, lines of tall avenue
radiated--the bones of a dead giant's skeleton--for Kerton once stood in
the centre of a royal forest.

You entered into a wide, low hall, the oak ceiling resting on broad
square pillars of the same dark wood; all round hung countless memorials
of chase and war, for the Livingstones had been hunters and soldiers
beyond the memory of man.

Often, passing through of a winter's evening, I have stopped to watch
the fitful effects of the great logs burning on the andirons, as their
light died away, deadened among brown bear-skins and shadowy antlers, or
played, redly reflected, on the mail