AFTER THE CUBS. 21 



my friend peering through the darkness at his 

 lodge-gates and indulging in a variation of those 

 verbal exercises which I declined to hear last 

 night. 



The clock strikes two, and again I am re- 

 lieved, to undergo a similar fright at five minutes 

 past three, and then, out of a desire to be calm 

 and not flurry about it, overdo it by some ten 

 minutes, put on the wrong boots, begin to button 

 the right gaiter on the left leg, and hastily eating 

 a mouthful of bread and swallowing a tumbler of 

 qualified milk, slam the door behind me, having 

 forgotten to pick up my gloves from the table. 

 Thus the ill-regulated and over-anxious mind 

 comports itself. 



The mare is not there, so I run round to the 

 stable to find her attendant giving her the finish- 

 ing touches, and in a very few seconds we are on 

 our way to see what the young entry have to say 

 to the Wessex cubs. Mist is the prevailing 

 feature of the morning. It rolls and hovers over 

 the fields in dense clouds, distorting the surface 

 of the country and giving familiar landmarks an 

 aspect quite different from their daily appear- 

 ance. 



The harvest is not yet in, and though work 

 cannot begin so early, from one wicket-gate a 

 couple of labourers appear, and another old man 



