‘And Charley Slapp, I’ll be bund to say,’ observed Jack.  ’He a regular hanger-on of Puff’s.’

‘Ass, that Slapp,’ said his lordship; ‘hate the sight of him!’

‘So do I,’ replied Jack, adding, ‘hate a hanger-on!’

‘There are the hounds,’ said his lordship, as they now approached Culverton Dean, and a line of something white was discernible travelling the zig-zagging road on the opposite side.

‘Are they, think you?’ replied Jack, staring through his great spectacles; ‘are they, think you?  It looks to me more like a flock of sheep.’

‘I believe you’re right,’ said his lordship, staring too; ’indeed, I hear the dog.  The hounds, however, can’t be far ahead.’

They then drew into single file to take the broken horse-track through the steep woody dean.

‘This is the longest sixteen miles I know,’ observed Jack, as they emerged from it, and overtook the sheep.

‘It is,’ replied his lordship, spurring his hack, who was now beginning to lag:  ‘the fact is, it’s eighteen,’ he continued; ’only if I was to tell Frosty it was eighteen, he would want to lay overnight, and that wouldn’t do.  Besides the trouble and inconvenience, it would spoil the best part of a five-pund note; and five-pund notes don’t grow upon gooseberry-bushes—­at least, not in my garden.’

‘Rather scarce in all gardens just now, I think,’ observed Jack; ’at least, I never hear of anybody with one to spare.’

‘Money’s like snow,’ said his lordship, ’a very meltable article; and talking of snow,’ he said, looking up at the heavy clouds, ’I wish we mayn’t be going to have some—­I don’t like the look of things overhead.’

‘Heavy,’ replied Jack; ‘heavy:  however, it’s due about now.’

‘Due or not due,’ said his lordship, ’it’s a thing one never wishes to come; anybody may have my share of snow that likes—­frost too.’

The road, or rather track, now passed over Blobbington Moor, and our friends had enough to do to keep their horses out of peat-holes and bogs, without indulging in conversation.  At length they cleared the moor, and, pulling out a gap at the corner of the inclosures, cut across a few fields, and got on to the Stumpington turnpike.

‘The hounds are here,’ said Jack, after studying the muddy road for some time.

‘They’ll not be there long,’ replied his lordship, ’for Grabtintoll Gate isn’t far ahead, and we don’t waste our substance on pikes.’

His lordship was right.  The imprints soon diverged up a muddy lane on the right, and our sportsmen now got into a road so deep and bottomless as to put the idea of stones quite out of the question.

‘Hang the road!’ exclaimed his lordship, as his hack nearly came on his nose, ‘hang the road!’ repeated he, adding, ’if Puff wasn’t such an ass, I really think I’d give him up the cross-road country.’

‘It’s bad to get at from us,’ observed Jack, who didn’t like such trashing distances.