pen, and cheerless. Here a patch of wood, there a patch of
heath, but its general aspect bare and unfruitful. The commanding outline
of Beechwood Forest was not visible for the weather. Time now, let us
suppose, half-past ten, with a full muster of horsemen and a fog making
unwonted dulness of the scene--the old sign-pole being the most conspicuous
object of the whole.

Hark! what a clamour there is about it. It's like a betting-post at
Newmarket. How loud the people talk! What's the news? Queen Anne dead, or
is there another French Revolution, or a fixed duty on corn? Reader, Mr.
Puffington's hounds have had a run, and the Flat Hat men are disputing it.

'Nothing of the sort! nothing of the sort!' exclaims Fossick, 'I know every
yard of the country, and you can't make more nor eight of it anyhow, if
eight.'

'Well, but I've measured it on the map,' replied the speaker (Charley Slapp
himself), 'and it's thirteen, if it's a yard.'

'Then the country's grown bigger since my day,' rejoins Fossick, 'for I was
dropped at Stubgrove, which is within a mile of where you found, and I've
walked, and I've ridden, and I've driven every yard of the distance, and
you can't make it more than eight, if it's as much. Can you, Capon?'
exclaimed Fossick, appealing to another of the 'flat brims,' whose luminous
face now shone through the fog.

'No,' replied Capon, adding, 'not so much, I should say.'

Just then up trotted Frostyface with the hounds.

'Good morning, Frosty! good morning!' exclaim half-a-dozen voices, that it
would be difficult to appropriate from the denseness of the fog. Frosty and
the whips make a general salute with their caps.

'Well, Frosty, I suppose you've heard what a run we had yesterday?'
exclaims Charley Slapp, as soon as Frosty and the hounds are settled.

'Had they, sir--had they?' replies Frosty, with a slight touch of his cap
and a sneer. 'Glad to hear it, sir--glad to hear it. Hope they killed,
sir--hope they killed!' with a still slighter touch of the cap.

'Killed, aye!--killed in the open just below Crabstone Green, in _your_
country,' adding, 'It was one of your foxes, I believe.'

'Glad of it, sir--glad of it, sir,' replies Frosty. 'They wanted blood
sadly--they wanted blood sadly. Quite welcome to one of our foxes,
sir--_quite_ welcome. That's a brace and a 'alf they've killed.'

'Brace and a ha-r-r-f!' drawls Slapp, in well-feigned disgust; 'brace and a
ha-r-r-f!--why, it makes them ten br