I doubt whether there's a beater in all Norfolk would go through the Black Wood, if you paid him red gold for it .-- Here, you lads." He turned to the beaters, who were standing waiting for instructions a few yards away.

There were a dozen of them, stalwart men for the most part, clad in rough smocks and breeches and carrying thick sticks.
"There's one of the gentlemen here," Middleton announced, addressing them, "who wants to know if you'd go through the Black Wood of Dominey for a sovereign apiece ?--Watch their faces, your Grace .-- Now then, lads ?" There was no possibility of any mistake.

The very suggestion seemed to have taken the healthy sunburn from their cheeks.

They fumbled with their sticks uneasily.

One of them touched his hat and spoke to Dominey.
"I'm one as 'as seen it, sir, as well as heard," he said.