By-and-by the labourer, trudging homeward, is overtaken by a hunter whose horse's neck droops with weariness.

His boots are splashed with mud, his coat torn by the thorns.

He is a visitor, vainly trying to find his way home, having come some ten or fifteen miles across country since the morning.

The labourer shows the route--the longest way round is the shortest at night--and as they go listens eagerly to the hunter's tale of the run.

At the cross roads they part with mutual goodwill towards each other, and a shilling, easily earned, pays that night for the cottager's pipe and glass of ale..