to see him murdered and exterminated, but die
the death of a gentleman, at the hands of gentlemen--"

"And ladies," sneered the farmer.

All the room was with Stephen, and would have backed him uproariously,
had he not reached his sounding period without knowing it, and thus
allowed his opponent to slip in that abominable addition.

"Ay, and ladies," cried the huntsman, keen at recovery. "Why shouldn't
they? I hate a field without a woman in it; don't you? and you? and you?
And you, too, Mrs. Boulby? There you are, and the room looks better for
you--don't it, lads? Hurrah!"

The cheering was now aroused, and Stephen had his glass filled again in
triumph, while the farmer meditated thickly over the ruin of his argument
from that fatal effort at fortifying it by throwing a hint to the
discredit of the sex, as many another man has meditated before.

"Eh! poor old Bob!" Stephen sighed and sipped. "I can cry that with any
of you. It's worse for me to see than for you to hear of him. Wasn't I
always a friend of his, and said he was worthy to be a gentleman, many a
time? He's got the manners of a gentleman now; offs with his hat, if
there's a lady present, and such a neat way of speaking. But there,
acting's the thing, and his behaviour's beastly bad! You can't call it no
other. There's two Mr. Blancoves up at Fairly, relations of Mrs.
Lovell's--whom I'll take the liberty of calling My Beauty, and no offence
meant: and it's before her that Bob only yesterday rode up--one of the
gentlemen being Mr. Algernon, free of hand and a good seat in the saddle,
t' other's Mr. Edward; but Mr. Algernon, he's Robert Eccles's man--up
rides Bob, just as we was tying Mr. Reenard's brush to the pommel of the
lady's saddle, down in Ditley Marsh; and he bows to the lady. Says
he--but he's mad, stark mad!"

Stephen resumed his pipe amid a din of disappointment that made the walls
ring and the glasses leap.

"A little more sugar, Stephen?" said Mrs. Boulby, moving in lightly from
the doorway.

"Thank ye, mum; you're the best hostess that ever breathed."

"So she be; but how about Bob?" cried her guests--some asking whether he
carried a pistol or flourished a stick.

"Ne'er a blessed twig, to save his soul; and there's the madness written
on him;" Stephen roared as loud as any of them. "And me to see him riding
in the ring there, and knowing what the gentleman had sworn to do if he
came across the hunt; and feeling that he was in the wro