fence's cross."
--SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.

I am sorry to say that only the third day after the propitious events
at Houndsley Fred Vincy had fallen into worse spirits than he had known
in his life before. Not that he had been disappointed as to the
possible market for his horse, but that before the bargain could be
concluded with Lord Medlicote's man, this Diamond, in which hope to the
amount of eighty pounds had been invested, had without the slightest
warning exhibited in the stable a most vicious energy in kicking, had
just missed killing the groom, and had ended in laming himself severely
by catching his leg in a rope that overhung the stable-board. There was
no more redress for this than for the discovery of bad temper after
marriage--which of course old companions were aware of before the
ceremony. For some reason or other, Fred had none of his usual
elasticity under this stroke of ill-fortune: he was simply aware that
he had only fifty pounds, that there was no chance of his getting any
more at present, and that the bill for a hundred and sixty would be
presented in five days. Even if he had applied to his father on the
plea that Mr. Garth should be saved from loss, Fred felt smartingly
that his father would angrily refuse to rescue Mr. Garth from the
consequence of what he would call encouraging extravagance and deceit.
He was so utterly downcast that he could frame no other project than to
go straight to Mr. Garth and tell him the sad truth, carrying with him
the fifty pounds, and getting that sum at least safely out of his own
hands. His father, being at the warehouse, did not yet know of the
accident: when he did, he would storm about the vicious brute being
brought into his stable; and before meeting that lesser annoyance Fred
wanted to get away with all his courage to face the greater. He took
his father's nag, for he had made up his mind that when he had told Mr.
Garth, he would ride to Stone Court and confess all to Mary. In fact,
it is probable that but for Mary's existence and Fred's love for her,
his conscience would have been much less active both in previously
urging the debt on his thought and impelling him not to spare himself
after his usual fashion by deferring an unpleasant task, but to act as
directly and simply as he could. Even much stronger mortals than Fred
Vincy hold half their rectitude in the mind of the being they love
best. "The theatre o