soul elate; but he drooped his head under the half-bred tradesmen's
praise, and shrank chagrined before their congratulations.

Yorke could not help asking him how he liked his supporters, and whether
he did not think they did honour to his cause. "But it is a pity, lad,"
he added, "that you did not hang these four samples of the unwashed. If
you had managed _that_ feat, the gentry here would have riven the horses
out of the coach, yoked to a score of asses, and drawn you into Stilbro'
like a conquering general."

Moore soon forsook the wine, broke from the party, and took the road.
In less than five minutes Mr. Yorke followed him. They rode out of
Stilbro' together.

It was early to go home, but yet it was late in the day. The last ray of
the sun had already faded from the cloud-edges, and the October night
was casting over the moorlands the shadow of her approach.

Mr. Yorke, moderately exhilarated with his moderate libations, and not
displeased to see young Moore again in Yorkshire, and to have him for
his comrade during the long ride home, took the discourse much to
himself. He touched briefly, but scoffingly, on the trials and the
conviction; he passed thence to the gossip of the neighbourhood, and ere
long he attacked Moore on his own personal concerns.

"Bob, I believe you are worsted, and you deserve it. All was smooth.
Fortune had fallen in love with you. She had decreed you the first prize
in her wheel--twenty thousand pounds; she only required that you should
hold your hand out and take it. And what did you do? You called for a
horse and rode a-hunting to Warwickshire. Your sweetheart--Fortune, I
mean--was perfectly indulgent. She said, 'I'll excuse him; he's young.'
She waited, like 'Patience on a monument,' till the chase was over and
the vermin-prey run down. She expected you would come back then, and be
a good lad. You might still have had her first prize.

"It capped her beyond expression, and me too, to find that, instead of
thundering home in a breakneck gallop and laying your assize laurels at
her feet, you coolly took coach up to London. What you have done there
Satan knows; nothing in this world, I believe, but sat and sulked. Your
face was never lily fair, but it is olive green now. You're not as bonny
as you were, man."

"And who is to have this prize you talk so much about?"

"Only a baronet; that is all. I have not a doubt in my own mind you've
lost her. She will be Lady Nunnely before C