ttle and
perhaps for the first time in her life fenced.

"Who, mother?"

"Mr. Silver."

"Yes," said the girl. "He's like Billy Bluff--only less rowdy."

CHAPTER XXIII

The Duke's Hounds

Silver's Leicestershire friends were under the delusion that he was
keeping his hunters at Lewes. And so indeed he did till the hunting
season began; and then he brought them over to Putnam's.

The Duke's north-country stud-groom, who was in _The Beehive_ at
Folkington, as they came along the road from Lewes, ran out of the bar
to have a look at them.

"Ma wud!" he whistled. "Champion!"

And Mike Rigg was right. Silver's horses indeed were the one item of his
personal expenditure on which the young man never spared his purse. He
used to say with perfect truth that except for his stud he could live
with joy on L3 a week. But there was no man in England who had a rarer
stud of weight-carriers.

"Big as blood elefunks," said Monkey Brand in the awed voice of a
worshipper. "Flip a couple o' ton across country singin' hallelooyah all
the way."

The Duke, when first they appeared with his hounds at the covertside,
shook his head over them: for Jim Silver came south with a formidable
reputation as a thruster.

"Too classy for my country, Silver," he said. "What d'you want with that
sort of stuff down here?"

"I didn't like to part with 'em, sir," replied the young man. "They've
done me well in their time."

"I don't want you young bloods from the shires down here," scolded the
Duke. "You'll be all over my hounds. This is an old man's country, ain't
it, Boy?"

Thunderbolt stood on his hind legs and pawed deliberately at the
heavens.

"They're big, your Grace," answered the girl. "But Mr. Silver's bigger.
He can hold them."

"And you can hold him, my dear," said the Duke. "Keep him in your
pocket, there's a good gal. Now, Joe, let's be moving on."

The Duke was fond of the girl. It was said, indeed, that he liked her
better than anybody in the hunt. Certainly he was never so happy as when
showing her round his famous piggeries at Raynor's, or talking goats to
her at an Agricultural Show.

Boy on her side was one of the most regular followers of the Duke's
hounds; but, as she never tired of impressing on her friends, she hunted
for professional reasons, and not for pleasure. Indeed, she was honest
as always when she declared that she did not care for hunting for its
own sake. There was so much swank about it an