98 The Amateur Poacher 



cushions of the sofa are strewn with dogs' hairs, and 

 once now and then a dog leisurely hops up the stair- 

 case. 



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. 



