had a little check at Moseley Bottom. But for
that, nobody could have lived through it. I never shall forget how
deep it was coming up from there to Cringleton. I saw two men get off
to ease their horses up the deep bit of plough; and I would have done
so too, only my horse would not have stood for me to get up."

"I hope he was none the worse for it," said the sporting character
who had been telling Staveley just now how she had cried when she got
home that night.

"To tell the truth, I fear it has done him no good. He would not
feed, you know, that night at all."

"And broke out into cold sweats," said the gentleman.

"Exactly," said the lady, not quite liking it, but still enduring
with patience.

"Rather groggy on his pins the next morning?" suggested her friend.

"Very groggy," said Harriet, regarding the word as one belonging to
fair sporting phraseology.

"And inclined to go very much on the points of his toes. I know all
about it, Miss Tristam, as well as though I'd seen him."

"There's nothing but rest for it, I suppose."

"Rest and regular exercise--that's the chief thing; and I should give
him a mash as often as three times a week. He'll be all right again
in three or four weeks,--that is if he's sound, you know."

"Oh, as sound as a bell," said Miss Tristram.

"He'll never be the same horse on a road though," said the sporting
gentlemen, shaking his head and whispering to Staveley.

And now the time had come at which they were to move. They always met
at eleven; and at ten minutes past, to the moment, Jacob the huntsman
would summons the old hounds from off their haunches. "I believe we
may be moving, Jacob," said Mr. Williams, the master.

"The time be up," said Jacob, looking at a ponderous timekeeper that
might with truth be called a hunting-watch; and then they all moved
slowly away back from the Grange, down a farm-road which led to
Monkton Wood, distant from the old house perhaps a quarter of a mile.

"May we go as far as the wood?" said Miss Furnival to Augustus.
"Without being made to ride over hedges, I mean."

"Oh, dear, yes; and ride about the wood half the day. It will be an
hour and a half before a fox will break--even if he ever breaks."

"Dear me! how tired you will be of us. Now do say something pretty,
Mr. Staveley."

"It's not my _metier_. We shall be tired, not of you, but of the
thing. Galloping up and down the same cuts in the wood for an hour
and a half is not exci