'Cross-roads, cross-roads--what cross-roads?' replied Leather.
'Where the hounds meet to-morrow.'
'Oh, the cross-roads at Somethin' Burn,' rejoined Leather
thoughtfully--'no, 'deed, I don't,' he added. 'From all 'counts, they seem
to be somewhere on the far side of the world.'
That was not a very encouraging answer; and feeling it would require a good
deal of persuasion to induce Mr. Leather to go in search of them without
clothing and the necessary requirements for his horses, Mr. Sponge went
trotting on, in hopes of seeing some place where he might get a sight of
the map of the county. So they proceeded in silence, till a sudden turn of
the road brought them to the spire and housetops of the little
agricultural town of Barleyboll. It differed nothing from the ordinary run
of small towns. It had a pond at one end, an inn in the middle, a church at
one side, a fashionable milliner from London, a merchant tailor from the
same place, and a hardware shop or two where they also sold treacle,
Dartford gunpowder, pocket-handkerchiefs, sheep-nets, patent medicines,
cheese, blacking, marbles, mole-traps, men's hats, and other miscellaneous
articles.
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