342 The Poacher. 



into the middle of them. The lecture I received from the hunts- 

 man had such an effect upon me, that I turned the horse's head, and 

 rode him about four miles home in cool blood, straight as a pigeon 

 to Jack Russell's lodge, and I never rode him to hounds again. The 

 old huntsman's sermon was preached quite as much at Mr. Russell 

 as myself, but he was incorrigible. He only regretted I was not 

 two stone heavier to steady the horse, whom he always declared in 

 time would be one of the best with our hounds, and he was right j 

 but he was so pleased with the after-piece, that he thought nothing 

 of the trick that the chestnut had served me in the lane. 



It was on the evening after this famous run that I was leading 

 Mr. Russell's horse home to our village, picking my way as best I 

 could, through deep, muddy, cross-country lanes and by-roads, one 

 of which a surly old countryman would persist in telling me Jed to 

 nowhere. Leyton Openfield was a very out-of-the-way place, and 

 the inhabitants of the dirty little village a very primitive lot. At 

 last, however, I found my way into a country which I knew, and 

 the sun was just sinking as I crossed the turnpike-road and struck 

 into a by-lane which led about two miles down to our village. 

 Somehow or other, now I had "got the key" of Jack Russell's 

 stable, I did not seem to feel half so anxious about a frost, and I 

 was rather glad to mark a heavy bank of clouds rising in the west 

 as the sun set, which to my mind bespoke wind and rain rather 

 than frost. The wood-pigeons had just finished their evening meal 

 off the turnips, and were dropping down to roost on the tall oaks 

 in a spinney to my right. The sheep were folded for the night, 

 and a dead silence so peculiar to a winter evening reigned over all. 

 Just as I got into the lane I heard a double shot in a stubble field 

 by the side of the road, and a little further on I saw the head 

 keeper's pony tied to a gate. He was coming up the field as I 

 passed j and as the gamekeeper is rather an important personage in 

 every rural district, especially as he looked over all our village, I 

 stopped to have a chat with him. Of course I gave him a very 

 accurate description of the run, not forgetting my share in the 

 performance j and he asked me if I would be kind enough to leave 



