hen on the floor, smoothing his hair, and hitching
up his smalls, and striving most laboriously not to grin till he should
have cause, stood Tim, like "Giafar awaiting his master's award!"

"Tim!" said Harry Archer.

"Sur!" said Tim.

"Tim! Mr. Forester and I are talking of going up to-morrow--what do you
say to it?"

"Oop yonner?" queried Tim, in the most extraordinary West-Riding
Yorkshire, indicating the direction, by pointing his right thumb over
his left shoulder--"Weel, Ay'se nought to say aboot it--not Ay!"

"Soh! the cattle are all right, and the wagon in good trim, and the dogs
in exercise, are they?"

"Ay'se warrant um!"

"Well, then, have all ready for a start at six to-morrow,--put Mr.
Forester's Manton alongside my Joe Spurling in the top tray of the case,
my single gun and my double rifle in the lower, and see the magazine
well filled--the Diamond gunpowder, you know, from Mr. Brough's. You'll
put up what Mr. Forester will want, for a week, you know--he does not
know the country yet, Tim;--and, hark you, what wine have I at Tom
Draw's?"

"No but a case of claret."

"I thought so, then away with you! down to the Baron's and get two
baskets of the Star, and stop at Fulton Market, and get the best half
hundred round of spiced beef you can find--and then go up to Starke's at
the Octagon, and get a gallon of his old Ferintosh--that's all, Tim--off
with you!--No! stop a minute!" and he filled up a beaker and handed it
to the original, who, shutting both his eyes, suffered the fragrant
claret to roll down his gullet in the most scientific fashion, and then,
with what he called a bow, turned right about, and exit.

The sun rose bright on the next morning, and half an hour before the
appointed time, Tim entered my bed-chamber, with a cup of mocha, and the
intelligence that "Measter had been oop this hour and better, and did na
like to be kept waiting!"--so up I jumped, and scarcely had got through
the business of rigging myself, before the rattle of wheels announced
the arrival of the wagon.

And a model was that shooting wagon--a long, light-bodied box, with a
low rail--a high seat and dash in front, and a low servant's seat
behind, with lots of room for four men and as many dogs, with guns and
luggage, and all appliances to boot, enough to last a month, stowed away
out of sight, and out of reach of weather. The nags, both nearly
thorough-bred, fifteen two inches high, stout, clean-limbed, active
an