little
white thatched home and inclosed ground of Farmer Ives, lying cradled in
the dingle, with the gay gorse common rising behind and on both sides;
while in front, after traversing a gentle slope, the eye might travel
for miles and miles over the rich vale. They now left the main road and
struck into a green track over the common marked lightly with wheel and
horse-shoe, which led down into the dingle and stopped at the rough gate
of Farmer Ives. Here they found the farmer, an iron-gray old man, with a
bushy eyebrow and strong aquiline nose, busied in one of his vocations.
He was a horse and cow doctor, and was tending a sick beast which had
been sent up to be cured. Benjy hailed him as an old friend, and he
returned the greeting cordially enough, looking however hard for a
moment both at Benjy and Tom, to see whether there was more in their
visit than appeared at first sight. It was a work of some difficulty and
danger for Benjy to reach the ground, which, however, he managed to do
without mishap; and then he devoted himself to unharnessing Dobbin and
turning him out for a graze ("a run" one could not say of that virtuous
steed) on the common. This done, he extricated the cold provisions from
the cart, and they entered the farmer's wicket; and he, shutting up the
knife with which he was taking maggots out of the cow's back and sides,
accompanied them towards the cottage. A big old lurcher got up slowly
from the door-stone, stretching first one hind leg and then the other,
and taking Tom's caresses and the presence of Toby, who kept, however,
at a respectful distance, with equal indifference.

"Us be cum to pay 'ee a visit. I've a been long minded to do't for old
sake's sake, only I vinds I dwon't get about now as I'd used to't. I be
so plaguy bad wi' th' rheumatiz in my back." Benjy paused, in hopes
of drawing the farmer at once on the subject of his ailments without
further direct application.

"Ah, I see as you bean't quite so lissom as you was," replied the
farmer, with a grim smile, as he lifted the latch of his door; "we
bean't so young as we was, nother on us, wuss luck."

The farmer's cottage was very like those of the better class of
peasantry in general. A snug chimney corner with two seats, and a small
carpet on the hearth, an old flint gun and a pair of spurs over the
fireplace, a dresser with shelves on which some bright pewter plates
and crockeryware were arranged, an old walnut table, a few chairs an