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Rh come pouring over the brow and enter the brake full in his view.

'You're tremblin', granfer.'

'Iss, cheeld, all of a quake, like the yallow furze where the hounds are forcin' a way. The moosic is 'most too much for me.'

'Mary,' said he, and the child raised her wondering eyes to the excited face, ' ' tes the line of the King Oter they're spakin' to, and—who can tell?—maybe the sun will shut down on a great day. But, lor me! what am I doin' here on this rick, with hounds about to take the water? My place is in the Mary Jane ' With that he scrambled down the rude ladder and bustled towards the spot where he had left the boat in the early morning.

As soon as he stepped in, the pack, which had been almost mute since entering the mere, broke out into a babel of music, proclaiming a find. The uproar so unnerved him that he was long in getting the oars between the thole-pins; but when he did, he pulled with might and main till, drawing near the hounds, he stopped rowing and kept a sharp lookout for the quarry repeating as he scanned the water: 'Ef 'tes only he, only he.' But not a sign of otter, big or small, met his eyes, either in the mere or in the creek, to