Hate to over-press anything that can't stand up to you and take its
revenge on you. Always feel ashamed of myself if I've over-pressed a
horse. But I hadn't reckoned on the distance."

"'The pace was too hot to inquire,'" quoted Shotover.

"So it was. Meeting at Grimshott, you see, we very rarely kill so far
on this side of the country."

"Breaking just where he did, I'd have bet on that fox doubling back
under Talepenny wood and making across the vale for the earths in the
big Brockhurst warren," Lord Shotover declared.

"Would you, though?" said his father. "Very reasonable forecast, very
reasonable, indeed. Quite the likeliest thing for him to do, only he
didn't do it. Don't believe that fox belonged to this side of the
country at all. Don't understand his tactics. If it had been in my poor
friend Denier's time, I might have suspected him of being a bagman."

Lord Fallowfeild chuckled a little.

"Ran too straight for a bagman," Shotover remarked. "Well, he gave us a
rattling good spin whose-ever fox he was."

"Didn't he, though?" said Lord Fallowfeild genially.--He turned
sideways in his chair, threw one shapely leg across the other, and
addressed himself more exclusively to his hostess. "Haven't had such a
day for years," he continued. "And a very pleasant thing to have such a
day just when my son's down with me--very pleasant, indeed. It reminds
me of my poor, dear friend Henniker's time. Good fellow, Henniker. I
liked Henniker. Never had a better master than Tom Henniker, very
tactful, nice-feeling man, and had such an excellent manner with the
farmers---- Ah! here's Cathcart--and Knott. How d'ye do, Knott? Always
glad to see you.--Very pleasant meeting such a number of friends. Very
pleasant ending to a pleasant day, eh, Shotover? Mrs. Cathcart and I
were just speaking of poor Tom Henniker. You used to hunt then,
Cathcart. Do you remember a run, just about this time of year?--It may
have been a little earlier. I tell you why. It was the second time the
hounds met after my poor friend Aldborough's funeral."

"Lord Aldborough died on the twenty-seventh of October," John Knott
said. The doctor limped in walking. He suffered a sharp twinge of
sciatica and his face lent itself to astonishing contortions.

"Plain man, Knott," Lord Fallowfeild commented inwardly. "Monstrously
able fellow, but uncommonly plain. So's Cathcart for that matter.
Well-dressed man and very well-preserved as to figure, but remarkably