"Well, Sir John, I will, with many thanks," answered his guest, and in about a quarter of an hour he was trotting away towards the new cottage of Stephen Gimlet, with a groom to show him the way. That way was a very picturesque one, cutting off an angle of the moor and then winding through wild lanes rich with all sorts of flowers and shrubs, till at length a small old gray church appeared in view at the side of a little green. The stone, where the thick ivy hid it not, was incrusted in many places with yellow, white, and brown lichens, giving that peculiar rich hue with which nature is so fond of investing old buildings. There was but one other edifice of any kind in the neighbourhood, and that was a small cottage of two stories, built close against one side of the church. Probably it had originally been the abode of the sexton, and the ivy spreading from the neighbouring buttress twined round the chimneys, meeting several lower shoots of the same creeping plant, and enveloped one whole side in a green mantle. The sunshine was streaming from behind the church, between it and the cottage, and that ray made the whole scene look cheerful enough; but yet Beauchamp could not help thinking, "This place, with its solitary house and lonely church, its little green, and small fields behind, with their close hedgerows, must look somewhat desolate in dull weather. Still the house seems a comfortable one, and there has been care bestowed upon the garden, with its flowers and herbs. I hope this is Gimlet's cottage; for the very fact of finding such things in preparation may waken in him different states from those to which he has been habituated."
"Here's the place, Sir," said the groom, riding up and touching his hat, and at the same moment the sound of the horses' feet brought the rosy, curly-headed urchin of the _ci-devant_ poacher trotting to the door.
Beauchamp dismounted and went in; and instantly a loud, yelping bark was heard from the other side of the front room, where a terrier dog was tied to the post of a sort of dresser. By the side of the dog was the figure of the newly-constructed gamekeeper himself, stooping down and arranging sundry boxes and cages on the ground.