the keepers laid hands on some notable poachers. They were convicted; and on their way to gaol confessed, in the hope of pardon, that they had that year packed safely off, before the Twelfth, twenty boxes, each with ten brace, from my friends' very hill! Take my advice; never think of closing with a shooting, till you have first tried it yourselves, or sent a trusty keeper over it, with two or three brace of good grouse dogs. I say a trusty keeper; for most of them are in league with the poachers. Get a sight, if possible, of the last year's game-book; learn who' shot' it last, and who are the surrounding proprietors. Always suspect the close neighbourhood of a great mail-road; and of an idle town among the hills."

Flood concluded by expressing a hope, that as this was a "sporting" trial, and they were likely to hear some interesting particulars as to the general laws of moor-letting and hiring, they would accompany him to it the following morning. Harold was himself destined to the Bar, and had never been within the far-famed

precincts of Westminster Hall. Moreover there was something so frank and friendly in Flood's manner, that he very willingly embraced his invitation; and before they parted for the night, he found his interest quite enlisted in favour of the sporting plaintiff.

CHAPTER IV.

"As by the Templars' haunts you go,
The Horse and Lamb displayed,

In emblematic figures, show

The merits of their trade.

"That clients may infer from thence
How just is their profession;
The lamb sets forth their innocence,
The horse their expedition!"

康

ANONYM.

HE sun was shining brightly far away in the country, but not in Palace

Yard, as St. Just and Flood followed,

arm in arm, in the wake of the early crowd, which every week-day morning, with clockwork punctuality, sets down Parliament Street. Judges' carriages were driving up. Whiteaproned porters, with metal badges round their necks, stood in obsequious groups, touching

their hats knowingly with different degrees of humility. Ushers and Court-criers cleared their voices for the day. Cabs brought their cargoes of Attornies, each at his Client's cost. The briefless barrister walked.

After threading the many passages which issue from the Great Judgment Hall, and guided by a finger-post in the direction which they were seeking, they found themselves in the immediate presence of a Superior Court of Justice. Lingering a few moments on the judicial threshold with a somewhat diffident step, and pushing to a noiseless door, which slammed either way with a very accommodating indifference, they entered a quiet green room into which a Midsummer sun was pouring its unmitigated rays through a large oriel window. At one extremity of the room, in an easy arm chair raised on somewhat of a platform, was seated a very quiet looking gentleman of quite an elderly age, who was evidently the President of the Assembly. He spoke but little, and what he did say escaped him in such gruff but

inaudible murmurs, that it failed of reaching the two visitors. Yet doubtless they were words of wisdom, since they fell from the lips of a Judge; moreover they were important words, for on them depended the interests of many a suitor, and they should have been spoken therefore with a dignified articulation, and a gracious delivery. They were likewise particularly struck by two other equally quiet personages, whom, from the conspicuous position they occupied on the floor of the Court, and from the undue share of the old gentleman's attention, which they monopolized, they concluded to be public characters of some eminence.

The impression, however, which they produced upon them was very far from favourable. The voice of one was particularly inharmonious; in fact he appeared to be labouring under a severe chronic cold: the ease therefore with which, under such circumstances, he delivered himself of the duties, which a very cumbrous mass of documents, bound together by a leathern strap, showed him to be entrusted with,