y away;--but not before they could give an account of
their fox. Neither for gods nor men must he be left, as long as his
skin was whole above ground. There is an importance attaching to the
pursuit of a fox, which gives it a character quite distinct from that
of any other amusement which men follow in these realms. It justifies
almost anything that men can do, and that at any place and in any
season. There is about it a sanctity which forbids interruption,
and makes its votaries safe under any circumstances of trespass or
intrusion. A man in a hunting county who opposes the county hunt must
be a misanthrope, willing to live in seclusion, fond of being in
Coventry, and in love with the enmity of his fellow-creatures. There
are such men, but they are regarded as lepers by those around them.
All this adds to the nobleness of the noble sport, and makes it
worthy of a man's energies.

And then the crowd of huntsmen hurried round from the front of
the house to a paddock at the back, and then again through the
stable yard to the front. The hounds were about--here, there, and
everywhere, as any one ignorant of the craft would have said, but
still always on the scent of that doomed beast. From one thicket
to another he tried to hide himself, but the moist leaves of the
underwood told quickly of his whereabouts. He tried every hole and
cranny about the house, but every hole and corner had been stopped by
Owen's jealous care. He would have lived disgraced for ever in his
own estimation, had a fox gone to ground anywhere about his domicile.
At last a loud whoop was heard just in front of the hall door. The
poor fox, with his last gasp of strength, had betaken himself to the
thicket before the door, and there the dogs had killed him, at the
very spot on which Aby Mollett had fallen.

Standing well back from the window, still thinking of Clara Desmond,
Owen Fitzgerald saw the fate of the hunted animal; he saw the head
and tail severed from the carcase by old Pat, and the body thrown to
the hounds,--a ceremony over which he had presided so many scores of
times; and then, when the dogs had ceased to growl over the bloody
fragments, he saw the hunt move away, back along the avenue to the
high road. All this he saw, but still he was thinking of Clara
Desmond.

CHAPTER XXV.

A MUDDY WALK ON A WET MORNING.

All that day of the hunt was passed very quietly at Castle Richmond.
Herbert did not once leave the house, having begg