“God forbid that this should prove so, but it is exactly of the same kind, and I feel impelled to tell it you at the risk of being laughed at. Certainly I do hope that you will be able to laugh at me. All I ask is that if it be not true, you keep my counsel. “Well then, I seemed to be somewhere in the great meadows between Woodburn and Beeton. The hay was all abroad, and numbers of people were busily getting it up. It was a splendid, still, reposing evening. I saw Mr. Drury amongst his work-people on his well-remembered tall, roan horse.” “Oh!” was ejaculated by every one present. “How odd too,” said George, looking at the date, “and this dream occurred on the night following the death of Mr. Drury. But to proceed.” “As I looked round I saw two men cross Wink’s Ferry into the meadows, one with a hay-fork in his hand. They seated themselves under the alder bushes near the ferry and on the banks of the river. One of these men I recognised at once. It was that Nathan Hopcraft, who lives just below you, and whose powers of gormandising I have witnessed to my astonishment in your kitchen. His short, thick figure was exact. As usual in hot weather, his shirt-collar and bosom were open, displaying his red, sunburnt, and hairy chest, and his thick, muscular neck, which I remember him once speaking of in his stupid and cart-before-the-horse-way, saying, ‘I have a bull like a neck,’ meaning he had a neck like a bull. There he sat in his shirt sleeves, and with him a man I never saw before. He was a tall, muscular fellow of about thirty. At first view I thought him a keeper, for he had on leather leggings and a velveteen shooting-jacket, with ample skirts and pockets, capable of holding a hare each if necessary. He had black curly hair, and full black whiskers. His face was burnt brown with exposure, and on looking closer his expression was sullen and savage.” “Oh, heavens!” exclaimed both Letty and her brother together. “Scammel! Scammel to the life! How extraordinary!”