At length he reached the top of the table, where sat his master, with the glittering Fox’s head before him.  Having made a sort of scratch bow, Tom proceeded to stand at ease, as it were, on the left leg, while he placed the late recusant right, which was a trifle shorter, as a prop behind.  No one, to look at the little wizen’d old man in the loose dark frock, baggy striped waistcoat, and patent cord breeches, extending below where the calves of his bow legs ought to have been, would have supposed that it was the noted huntsman and dashing rider, Tom Towler, whose name was celebrated throughout the country.  He might have been a village tailor, or sexton, or barber; anything but a hero.

‘Well, Tom,’ said Mr. Waffles, taking up the Fox’s head, as Tom came to anchor by his side, ‘how are you?’

‘Nicely, thank you, sir,’ replied Tom, giving the bald head another sweep.

Mr. Waffles.—­’What’ll you drink?’

Tom.—­’Port, if you please, sir.’

‘There it is for you, then,’ said Mr. Waffles, brimming the Fox’s head, which held about the third of a bottle (an inn bottle at least), and handing it to him.

‘Gentlemen all,’ said Tom, passing his sleeve across his mouth, and casting a side-long glance at the company as he raised the cup to drink their healths.

He quaffed it off at a draught.

‘Well, Tom, and what shall we do to-morrow?’ asked Mr. Waffles, as Tom replaced the Fox’s head, nose uppermost, on the table.

[Illustration:  OLD TOM TOWLER]

‘Why, we must draw Ribston Wood fust, I s’pose,’ replied Tom, ’and then on to Bradwell Grove, unless you thought well of tryin’ Chesterton Common on the road, or—­’

‘Aye, aye,’ interrupted Waffles, ’I know all that; but what I want to know is, whether we can make sure of a run.  We want to give this great metropolitan swell a benefit.  You know who I mean?’

’The gen’leman as is com’d to the Brunswick, I ‘spose,’ replied Tom; ’at least as is comin’, for I’ve not heard that he’s com’d yet.’

‘Oh, but he has,’ replied Mr. Waffles, ’and I make no doubt will be out to-morrow.’

‘S—­o—­o,’ observed Tom, in a long drawled note.

‘Well, now! do you think you can engage to give us a run?’ asked Mr. Waffles, seeing his huntsman did not seem inclined to help him to his point.

‘I’ll do my best,’ replied Tom, cautiously running the many contingencies through his mind.

‘Take another drop of something,’ said Mr. Waffles, again raising the Fox’s head.  ‘What’ll you have?’

‘Port, if you please,’ replied Tom.

‘There,’ said Mr. Waffles, handing him another bumper; ‘drink Fox-hunting.’

‘Fox-huntin’,’ said old Tom, quaffing off the measure, as before.  A flush of life came into his weather-beaten face, just as a glow of heat enlivens a blacksmith’s hearth, after a touch of the bellows.