Their forty-first birth-day arrived: Ralph attended a review of the yeomanry-cavalry, in which he was a corporal, and Harry went to market for the purpose of selling some steers. On returning home, they were obliged to cross each other's track. They dwelt at opposite ends of the long, straggling village; which were approached by two different lanes: of these, the letter X will serve as a tolerably good substitute for a ground plan;--the market town being situate at the top of the left, and the common, on which the review was held, on that of the right, limb of the letter; at the lower end of which the village meandered along through meadows and corn-fields; Harry's abode being at the right, and Ralph's at the left end of it. The two lanes were crossed, at the point of intersection, by a third, which, on account of its being two or three yards wider, and a little more frequented than either of them, was dignified with the title of “the high road;” and in this “undeniable situation,” as George Robins would say, stood a snug public house, called Sawney's Cross; the front of which commanded a view, across the high road, for some distance up the lanes which led to the market town and common. Harry was proceeding down one lane, at a speedy, shuffling pace, betwixt a gallop and trot, on a powerful blind galloway; while Ralph approached the line of intersection, from the common, by the other, on a gaunt, half-bred horse, nearly sixteen hands high, a strong galloper, and quite ungovernable when put upon his mettle. The galloway and the tall horse were both “homeward bound;” and “sniffing the manger from afar,” each of them was going along, impatient of check, and at, what jockies would call, “a tip-top pace.”