"All the more reezun for gittin' 'im soon home. I'd lay wager, if the anymal kud speak, 't 'ud say the same." "Might. But, for all that, him's rightdown tired. If him want, there wud be no need yer slappin' he. Don't slap him any more, Jack." "Well, I won't. Yee-up, Jinkum! I 'ant a-goin' to gi' ye the stick agen. 'Nother mile, and ye'll be back to yer own bit o' paster in the ole orchart, whar the grass'll be up to yer ears. Yee-up!" At which Jinkum, as though comprehending the merciful disposition towards him, and grateful for it, seemed to improve his pace. The speakers were a man and woman, both of uncommon appearance--the man a diminutive specimen of humanity, who walked with a jerking gait, due to his having a wooden leg. The woman was taller than he, by the head and shoulders quite; while in every other way above the usual dimensions of her sex. Of a somewhat masculine aspect, she was withal far from ill-favoured--rather the contrary. Her gown of coarse homespun, dust-stained and _delabre_, could not conceal a voluptuous outline of figure; while to have her eyes and hair many a queen would have been glad to give the costliest jewel in her crown. The complexion was dark, the features of a gipsy type--though she was not one--the hair, a very hatful, carelessly coiled around her head, black as the wing of a crow. The first thought of one beholding her would be: "What a woman, if but washed and becomingly clad?" For both skin and dress showed something more than the dust that day caught up from the road--smouches of older date. Despite all, she was a grand, imposing personage; of tireless strength, too, as evinced by her easy, elastic step while breasting that steep pitch on her twenty-second mile since morning. The journey seemed to have had little effect on her, however it may have jaded Jinkum. Notwithstanding the disparity in size between the man and woman--a good deal also in their age, he being much her senior--they bore a certain resemblance to one another. It lay in their features and complexion; Jack having a gipsyish look, too. Nor any wonder at their being some little alike, since they were _not_ man and wife, but brother and sister--both born Foresters. There was nothing in the character of either at all disreputable, though their business was such as usually brings suspicion on those who follow it. Known all over the forest, and for miles around it, as cadgers, they trafficked in every conceivable thing by which an honest penny might be made, though their speciality was the transport of fowls, with other products of the farmyard, to the markets of Ross and Monmouth--generally on freight account--taking back such parcels as they could pick up. Ruardean was their port of departure and return; their home, when they were at home, being a cottage in the outskirts of that elevated village.