ho certainly cannot ride a race,
but who have horse in every feature, puff cigars and chat in jerky
monosyllables that to an outsider are perfectly incomprehensible. But
the glib way in which heavy sums of money are spoken of conveys the
impression that they dabble in enormous wealth.

There are dogs under the tables and chairs; dogs in the window-seat;
dogs panting on the stone flags of the passage, after a sharp trot
behind a trap, choosing the coolest spot to loll their red tongues out;
dogs outside in the road; dogs standing on hind legs, and painfully
lapping the water in the horse-trough; and there is a yapping of puppies
in the distance. The cushions of the sofa are strewn with dogs' hairs,
and once now and then a dog leisurely hops up the staircase.

Customers are served by the landlady, a decent body enough in her way:
her son, the man of the house, is up in the 'orchut' at the rear,
feeding his dogs. Where the 'orchut' ends in a paddock stands a small
shed: in places the thatch on the roof has fallen through in the course
of years and revealed the bare rafters. The bottom part of the door has
decayed, and the long nose of a greyhound is thrust out sniffing through
a hole. Dickon, the said son, is delighted to undo the padlock for a
visitor who is 'square.' In an instant the long hounds leap up, half a
dozen at a time, and I stagger backwards, forced by the sheer vigour of
their caresses against the doorpost. Dickon cannot quell the uproarious
pack: he kicks the door open, and away they scamper round and round the
paddock at headlong speed.

What a joy it is to them to stretch their limbs! I forget the squalor of
the kennel in watching their happy gambols. I cannot drink more than one
tumbler of brown brandy and water; but Dickon overlooks that weakness,
feeling that I admire his greyhounds. It is arranged that I am to see
them work in the autumn.

The months pass, and in his trap with the famous trotter in the shafts
we roll up the village street. Apple-bloom and golden fruit too are
gone, and the houses show more now among the bare trees; but as the rim
of the ruddy November sun comes forth from the edge of a cloud there
appears a buff tint everywhere in the background. When elm and ash are
bare the oaks retain their leaves, and these are illumined by the autumn
beams. Over-topped by tall elms and hidden by the orchards, the oaks
were hardly seen in summer; now they are found to be numerous and give
the p