happy
he was that the young squire was to be the Squire some day. "So am I,
Cox; so am I," said the Squire. "And I hope he'll be a friend to you
for many a year."

"By the holy, there's Dick a-hallooing," said Cox, forgetting at
once the comparatively unimportant affairs of Newton Priory in the
breaking of this unexpected fox. "Golly;--if he ain't away, Squire."
The hounds had gone at once to the whip's voice, and were in full cry
in less time than it has taken to tell the story of "the find." Cox
was with them, and so was the Squire. There were two or three others,
and one of the whips. The start, indeed, was not much, but the burst
was so sharp, and the old fox ran so straight, that it sufficed to
enable those who had got the lead to keep it. "Tally-ho!" shouted the
Squire, as he saw the animal making across a stubble field before the
hounds, with only one fence between him and the quarry. "Tally-ho!"
It was remarked afterwards that the Squire had never been known to
halloo to a fox in that way before. "Just like one of the young
'uns, or a fellow out of the town," said Cox, when expressing his
astonishment.

But the Squire never rode a run better in his life. He gave a lead to
the field, and he kept it. "I wouldn't 'a spoilt him by putting my
nose afore 'is, were it ever so," said Cox afterwards. "He went as
straight as a schoolboy at Christmas, and the young horse he rode
never made a mistake. Let men say what they will, a young horse will
carry a man a brush like that better than an old one. It was very
short. They had run their fox, pulled him down, broken him up, and
eaten him within half an hour. Jack Graham, who is particular about
those things, and who was, at any rate, near enough to see it all,
said that it was exactly twenty-two minutes and a half. He might
be right enough in that, but when he swore that they had gone over
four miles of ground, he was certainly wrong. They killed within a
field of Heckfield church, and Heckfield church can't be four miles
from Barford Gorse. That they went as straight as a line everybody
knew. Besides, they couldn't have covered the ground in the time.
The pace was good, no doubt; but Jacky Graham is always given to
exaggeration."

The Squire was very proud of his performance, and, when Ralph came
up, was loud in praise of the young horse. "Never was carried so well
in my life,--never," said he. "I knew he was good, but I didn't know
he would jump like that. I wouldn't