tanned brown and purple by constant exposure. Between rheumatism
and constant handling the rod and gun, his fingers were crooked like
a hawk's claws. He kept his left eye always shut, apparently to
save trouble in shooting; and squinted, and sniffed, and peered,
with a stooping back and protruded chin, as if he were perpetually
on the watch for fish, flesh, and fowl, vermin and Christian. The
friendship between himself and the Scotch terrier at his heels would
have been easily explained by Lessing, for in the transmigration of
souls the spirit of Harry Verney had evidently once animated a dog
of that breed. He was dressed in a huge thick fustian jacket,
scratched, stained, and patched, with bulging, greasy pockets; a
cast of flies round a battered hat, riddled with shot-holes, a dog-
whistle at his button-hole, and an old gun cut short over his arm,
bespoke his business.

'I seed that 'ere Crawy against Ashy Down Plantations last night,
I'll be sworn,' said he, in a squeaking, sneaking tone.

'Well, what harm was the man doing?'

'Oh, ay, that's the way you young 'uns talk. If he warn't doing
mischief, he'd a been glad to have been doing it, I'll warrant. If
I'd been as young as you, I'd have picked a quarrel with him soon
enough, and found a cause for tackling him. It's worth a brace of
sovereigns with the squire to haul him up. Eh? eh? Ain't old Harry
right now?'

'Humph!' growled the younger man.

'There, then, you get me a snare and a hare by to-morrow night,'