"By Guy, Mayster Harold, but you are growed, looking well and all," says Tom; and then, turning to the Master: "Eh, Sir John, ay's gettin' a rare-topped 'un."
"By Jove, Tom, there's no need to ask how you are, you're looking as fit as a fiddle. Is that young gray horse fit for me to ride? The one you had at the kennels, I mean," ejaculates Harold: and, receiving an answer in the affirmative, walks off with Sir John to where an obsequious porter is hoisting his traps into a dog-cart which is standing outside.
"Here, John," he says to his brother, as he jumps up, "I'm going to drive."
"Not if I know it," replies the Master. "I have not forgotten that last exploit of yours, when you upset me over a heap of stones."
But of course the boy has his way, and with a "Good-night, Tom," and a wave of the hand, they rattle round the corner, shaving the gate-post so close as to cause the Master to clench his teeth and hold on like grim death.
"Well," mutters Tom, when they, are out of sight, "there'll be some riding to-morrow, I know, and some tumbling too. I 'opes we gets away quick, for though I loves to see the lads go, they do myther (bother) me terrible at the first;" and he turns up the road towards the kennels, exchanging Good-nights and bright hopes for the morrow with the young occupants of the various traps as they pass him on their way to their respective homes.
By ten o'clock the next morning the road to The Grange is lively with the usual symptoms of a meet. Grooms with led-horses are riding alongside the tax-cart of the butcher or baker. Men and boys on foot keep up that peculiar kind of shuffle, half run, half walk, which is seen nowhere save in the country. The keeper and the poacher jostle one another and combine to chaff the merry vendor of crockery and hardware who, perched on the top of his wares and drawn by his trotting "moke," has chosen the centre of the road, somewhat to the inconvenience of those in his rear.
He is well able to hold his own, and gives as much as he gets. Indeed, in the matter of chaff, it takes the allied forces all their time to keep on even terms until they overtake the local policeman, when the channel of wit and repartee is diverted against "poor Robert," who of course being ignominiously defeated at once, takes refuge under official dignity, and thinks of the time when his turn will come.
The keepers have held aloof from the latter entertainment, for it would not be right to make a butt of the Law, they think; and so, joining him, all proceed towards The Grange as merry as crickets. Presently there is a shout from behind, and turning round they see old Tom and the pack, with many a bit of pink in his wake, and, what is more (in their own eyes, at all events), many an emancipated schoolboy.
"Lend us one of them dorgs to run under my carriage," says the itinerant hardware merchant as they pass him.