"

His cat replied by humping her back at the dog.

The half-crown was tossed down, and Ripton, who had just succeeded in
freeing his limbs from the briar, prickly as a hedgehog, collared the
loaf.

"Those young squires be sharp-set, and no mistake," said the tinker to
his companion. "Come! we'll to Bursley after 'em, and talk it out over a
pot o' beer." Speed-the-Plough was nothing loath, and in a short time
they were following the two lads on the road to Bursley, while a
horizontal blaze shot across the autumn and from the Western edge of the
rain-cloud.

CHAPTER IV

Search for the missing boys had been made everywhere over Raynham, and
Sir Austin was in grievous discontent. None had seen them save Austin
Wentworth and Mr. Morton. The baronet sat construing their account of the
flight of the lads when they were hailed, and resolved it into an act of
rebellion on the part of his son. At dinner he drank the young heir's
health in ominous silence. Adrian Harley stood up in his place to propose
the health. His speech was a fine piece of rhetoric. He warmed in it
till, after the Ciceronic model, inanimate objects were personified, and
Richard's table-napkin and vacant chair were invoked to follow the steps
of a peerless father, and uphold with his dignity the honour of the
Feverels. Austin Wentworth, whom a soldier's death compelled to take his
father's place in support of the toast, was tame after such
magniloquence. But the reply, the thanks which young Richard should have
delivered in person were not forthcoming. Adrian's oratory had given but
a momentary life to napkin and chair. The company of honoured friends,
and aunts and uncles, remotest cousins, were glad to disperse and seek
amusement in music and tea. Sir Austin did his utmost to be hospitable
cheerful, and requested them to dance. If he had desired them to laugh he
would have been obeyed, and in as hearty a manner.

"How triste!" said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne's curate, as that most
enamoured automaton went through his paces beside her with professional
stiffness.

"One who does not suffer can hardly assent," the curate answered, basking
in her beams.

"Ah, you are good!" exclaimed the lady. "Look at my Clare. She will not
dance on her cousin's birthday with anyone but him. What are we to do to
enliven these people?"

"Alas, madam! you cannot do for all what you do for one," the curate
sighed, and wherever she wandered in discourse, drew h