His grandchildren are behind him; two of his sons, quite elderly themselves, attend him almost to the front, so that he may have to make but a few steps unsupported.  The old man is frosted with age, and moves stiffly, like a piece of mechanism rather than a living creature, nor is there any expression—­neither smile nor interest—­upon his absolutely immobile features.  He wears breeches and gaiters, and a blue coat cut in the style of two generations since.  There is a small clear space in the midst of the well-dressed throng.  There he stands, and for the moment the hum is hushed.

For sixty years that old man laboured upon one farm; sixty years of ploughing and sowing, sixty harvests.  What excitement, what discoveries and inventions—­with what giant strides the world has progressed while he quietly followed the plough!  An acknowledgment has been publicly awarded to him for that long and faithful service.  He puts forth his arm; his dry, horny fingers are crooked, and he can neither straighten nor bend them.  Not the least sign appears upon his countenance that he is even conscious of what is passing.  There is a quick flash of jewelled rings ungloved to the light, and the reward is placed in that claw-like grasp by the white hand of the marchioness.

Not all the gallant cavalry of the land fearlessly charging hedge and brook can, however, repel the invasion of a foe mightier than their chief.  Frost sometimes comes and checks their gaiety.  Snow falls, and levels every furrow, and then Hodge going to his work in the morning can clearly trace the track of one of his most powerful masters, Squire Reynard, who has been abroad in the night, and, likely enough, throttled the traditional grey goose.  The farmer watches for the frozen thatch to drip; the gentleman visiting the stable looks up disconsolately at the icicles dependent from the slated eave with the same hope.  The sight of a stray seagull wandering inland is gladly welcomed, as the harbinger of drenching clouds sweeping up on soft south-westerly gales from the nearest coast.

The hunt is up once more, and so short are the hours of the day in the dead of the year, that early night often closes round the chase.  From out of the gloom and the mist comes the distant note of the horn, with a weird and old-world sound.  By-and-by the labourer, trudging homeward, is overtaken by a hunter whose horse’s neck droops with weariness.  His boots are splashed with mud, his coat torn by the thorns.  He is a visitor, vainly trying to find his way home, having come some ten or fifteen miles across country since the morning.  The labourer shows the route—­the longest way round is the shortest at night—­and as they go listens eagerly to the hunter’s tale of the run.  At the cross roads they part with mutual goodwill towards each other, and a shilling, easily earned, pays that night for the cottager’s pipe and glass of ale.

CHAPTER IX