e weary with waiting, and saying pleasant words to him through
the whole. Felix Graham was a man who would remember such things.

In running through the wood the boy first encountered three horsemen.
They were the judge, with his daughter Madeline and Miss Furnival.
"There be a mon there who be a'most dead," said the boy, hardly able
to speak from want of breath. "I be agoing for Farmer Griggs' cart."
And then they stopped him a moment to ask for some description, but
the boy could tell them nothing to indicate that the wounded man
was one of their friends. It might however be Augustus, and so the
three rode on quickly towards the fence, knowing nothing of the
circumstances of the ditches which would make it out of their power
to get to the fallen sportsman.

But Peregrine heard the sound of the horses and the voices of the
horsemen. "By Jove, there's a lot of them coming down here," said he.
"It's the judge and two of the girls. Oh, Miss Staveley, I'm so glad
you've come. Graham has had a bad fall and hurt himself. You haven't
a shawl, have you? the ground is so wet under him."

"It doesn't signify at all," said Felix, looking round and seeing the
faces of his friends on the other side of the bank.

Madeline Staveley gave a slight shriek which her father did not
notice, but which Miss Furnival heard very plainly. "Oh papa," she
said, "cannot you get over to him?" And then she began to bethink
herself whether it were possible that she should give up something of
her dress to protect the man who was hurt from the damp muddy ground
on which he lay.

"Can you hold my horse, dear," said the judge, slowly dismounting;
for the judge, though he rode every day on sanitary considerations,
had not a sportsman's celerity in leaving and recovering his saddle.
But he did get down, and burdened as he was with a great-coat, he
did succeed in crossing that accursed fence. Accursed it was from
henceforward in the annals of the H. H., and none would ride it but
dare-devils who professed themselves willing to go at anything.
Miss Tristram, however, always declared that there was nothing in
it--though she avoided it herself, whispering to her friends that she
had led others to grief there, and might possibly do so again if she
persevered.

"Could you hold the horse?" said Madeline to Miss Furnival; "and I
will go for a shawl to the carriage." Miss Furnival declared that to
the best of her belief she could not, but nevertheless the a