WARWICK WOODLANDS. 43 



that all was ready; and passing through the farm-yai'd. 

 we entered, througli a set of bars, a broad bright buck- 

 wheat stubble. Scarcely an hundred yards had we pro- 

 ceeded, before we sprung the tinest bevy of the largest 

 quail I had yet seen, and flying high and wild crossed 

 half-a-dozen fields in the direction of the village, whence 

 we had started, and pitched at length into an alder brake 

 beside the stream. 



"Them chaps has gone the right way," Tom exclaimed, 

 with a deep sigh, who had with wondrous difficulty re- 

 frained from firing into them, though he was loaded with 

 buckshot; "right in the course we count to take this fore- 

 noon. Now, Squire, keep to the left here, take your sta- 

 tion by the old earths there away, under the tall dead 

 pine; and you. Bill, make tracks there, straight through 

 the middle cart-way, down to the other meadow, and sit 

 you down right where the two streams fork ; thei'e'll be an 

 old red snooping down that side afore long, I reckon. 

 We'll go on Mr. Forester; here's a big rail fence now; 

 I'll throw off the top rail, for I'll be darned if I climb 

 any day when I can creep — there, that'll do, I reckon ; 

 leastwise if you can ride like Archer — he d — ns me always 

 if I so much as shakes a fence afore he jumps it — you've 

 got the best horse, too, for lepping. Now let's see! Well 

 done! well done!" he continued, with a most boisterous 

 burst of laughter— "well done, horse, any how!" — as Pea- 

 cock, who had been chafing ever since he parted from his 

 comrade Bob, went at the fence as though he were about 

 to take it in his stroke — stopped short when within a yard 

 of it, and then bucked over it, without touching a splinter, 

 although it was at least five feet, and shaking me so 

 much, that, greatly to Tom's joy, I showed no little 

 glimpse of day-light. 



"I reckon if they run the meadows, you'll hardly ride 

 them. Forester," he grinned; "but now away with you. 

 You see the tall dark pin oak, it hasn't lost one leaf yet; 

 right in the nook there of the bars you'll find a quiet 

 shady spot, where you can see clear up the rail fence to 

 this knob, where I'll be. Off with you, boy — and mind 

 you now, you keep as dumb as the old woman when her 

 husband cut her tongue out, 'cause she had too much 

 jaw." 



Finishing his discourse, he squatted himself down on 



