In half an hourʼs time or less, when the dusk come down like wool, Cradock cast loose his favourite Caldo, and set out for the Coffin Wood. From habit more than forethought, and to give his dog some pleasure, there by the kennel he loaded his double–barrelled gun. He had made up his mind to shoot no more upon his fatherʼs land, until he had express permission from Sir Cradock Nowell. This was a whim, no doubt, and a piece of pride on his part; but the scene of that afternoon, and his fatherʼs bearing towards him, had left some bitter feeling, and a sense of alienation. This was the reason why he would not go with Clayton, much as he longed to do so. Now, with some dull uncertainty and vague depression clouding him, he loaded his gun in an absent manner; putting loose shot, No. 6, in one barrel, and a cartridge in the other. “Hie away, boy”! he cried to Caldo, who had crouched at his feet the while; then he struck off hot foot for the westward, with the gun upon his shoulder. But just as he started, one of the lads, who was often employed as a beater, ran up, and said, with his cap in his hand, in a manner most insinuating— “Take I ’long of ’ee, Meestur Craduck. Iʼll be rare and keerful, sir”. “No, thank you, Charley, not this time. I am not even going shooting, and I mean to go quite alone”. Poor Cradock, unlucky to the last. Almost everything he had done that day had been a great mistake; and now there was only one more to come, the deadliest error of all. Whistling a dreamy old tune, he hurried over the brown and tufted land, sometimes leaping a tussock of bed–furze, sometimes following a narrow hare–run, a soft green thread through the heather.