Meanwhile Frank, after cantering on for some distance, stopped at a cottage, and there learned that there was a short cut across the fields to Rood Hall, by which he could save nearly three miles. Frank, however, missed the short cut, and came out into the highroad: a turnpike keeper, after first taking his toll, put him back again into the short cut; and finally, he got into some green lanes, where a dilapidated finger-post directed him to Rood. Late at noon, having ridden fifteen miles in the desire to reduce ten to seven, he came suddenly upon a wild and primitive piece of ground, that seemed half Chase, half common, with slovenly tumble-down cottages of villanous aspect scattered about in odd nooks and corners; idle dirty children were making mud pies on the road; slovenly-looking women were plaiting straw at the thresholds; a large but forlorn and decayed church, that seemed to say that the generation which saw it built was more pious than the generation which now resorted to it, stood boldly and nakedly out by the roadside. "Is this the village of Rood?" asked Frank of a stout young man breaking stones on the road--sad sign that no better labour could be found for him! The man sullenly nodded, and continued his work. "And where's the Hall--Mr. Leslie's?" The man looked up in stolid surprise, and this time touched his hat. "Be you going there?" "Yes, if I can find out where it is." "I'll show your honour," said the boor alertly. Frank reined in the pony, and the man walked by his side. Frank was much of his father's son, despite the difference of age, and that more fastidious change of manner which characterises each succeeding race in the progress of civilisation. Despite all his Eton finery, he was familiar with peasants, and had the quick eye of one country-born as to country matters. "You don't seem very well off in this village, my man?" said he knowingly. "Noa; there be a deal of distress here in the winter time, and summer too, for that matter; and the parish ben't much help to a single man." "But the farmers want work here as well as elsewhere, I suppose?" "'Deed, and there ben't much farming work here--most o' the parish be all wild ground loike." "The poor have a right of common, I suppose," said Frank, surveying a large assortment of vagabond birds and quadrupeds. "Yes; neighbour Timmins keeps his geese on the common, and some has a cow--and them be neighbour Jowlas's pigs. I don't know if there's a right, loike; but the folks at the Hall does all they can to help us, and that ben't much: they ben't as rich as some folks; but," added the peasant proudly, "they be as good blood as any in the shire." "I'm glad to see you like them, at all events." "Oh yes, I likes them well eno'; mayhap you are at school with the young gentleman?" "Yes," said Frank.