JANUARY JAUNTS 407 



you write anytliing heavy upon it it's bound to crack ! " 

 Upon this warning I retire to rest, reserving all pon- 

 derous thought for another occasion. 



Stay, though. Do you know that we — the Pytchley 

 again — nearly lost one of our leading landowners, leading 

 fox-preservers, leading members during this recent spell 

 of cold ? The escape was so narrow, the experience so 

 thrilling, that I must relieve my mind by telling you, even 

 thougii no opportunity remains of asking his permission. 

 Well, he being, I can say without fear of contradiction, 

 an excellent and liberal landlord, had lately erected for a 

 tenant on a lonely farm a new and solid hovel or barn. And 

 one day during the frost he and madame, taking with them 

 their dogs, walked forth to view it. A snowstorm came 

 on, and they were glad to take shelter within the building, 

 shutting the new oak door duly behind them. Horror of 

 horrors, there was no means of unfastenmg it from the 

 inside ! There was not even a window through which the 

 landlord could climb. In the dead darkness minute suc- 

 ceeded minute, and an hour ran into another. Not being 

 a smoker, he had not even a match with which to break 

 the gloom. He was as a man buried alive in a vault 

 built bv his own hands, and, worse than all, having led his 

 own fair lady to such fearful doom. They would probably 

 be frozen there this dreadful New Year's Eve. They might 

 languish and die of starvation after many days ; for no 

 one, not even the shepherd, now the stock was cleared 

 off the fields, was likely to come near this desolate hovel. 

 The thought w^as maddening, and he flung himself with all 

 his weight again and again against the unyielding wood, 

 and in vain tried to reach the catch with his penknife. In 

 view of the awful possibilities his mind turned for a minute 

 to the dogs, sleek and fat, and doubtless tender. But, in 

 the absence, as I have said, of matches or of fire-making 

 material, how could these be made food for lord and lady ? 



The clock warns me of the postman's coming, and I 

 will release you and them, by merely adding that under the 

 inventive pressure of necessity the male prisoner at length 

 got his walking-stick under the door, and with its hook 

 and his own extended arm opened the way to daylight. 



