out for the branches,' she shouted, as they
whirled up a splashy ride. Cubs were plentiful. Most of the hounds
attached themselves to a straight-necked youngster of education who
scuttled out of the woods into the open fields below.

'Hold on!' some one shouted. 'Turn 'em, Midmore. That's your brute
Sidney's land. It's all wire.'

'Oh, Connie, stop!' Mrs. Sperrit shrieked as her daughter charged at a
boundary-hedge.

'Wire be damned! I had it all out a fortnight ago. Come on!' This was
Midmore, buffeting into it a little lower down.

'_I_ knew that!' Connie cried over her shoulder, and she flitted across
the open pasture, humming to herself.

'Oh, of course! If some people have private information, they can afford
to thrust.' This was a snuff-coloured habit into which Miss Sperrit had
cannoned down the ride.

'What! 'Midmore got Sidney to heel? _You_ never did that, Sperrit.' This
was Mr. Fisher, M.F.H., enlarging the breach Midmore had made.

'No, confound him!' said the father testily. 'Go on, sir! _Injecto ter
pulvere_--you've kicked half the ditch into my eye already.'

They killed that cub a little short of the haven his mother had told him
to make for--a two-acre Alsatia of a gorse-patch to which the M.F.H. had
been denied access for the last fifteen seasons. He expressed his
gratitude before all the field and Mr. Sidney, at Mr. Sidney's
farm-house door.

'And if there should be any poultry claims--' he went on.

'There won't be,' said Midmore. 'It's too like cheating a sucking child,
isn't it, Mr. Sidney?'

'You've got me!' was all the reply. 'I be used to bein' put upon, but
you've got me, Mus' Midmore.'

Midmore pointed to a new brick pig-pound built in strict disregard of
the terms of the life-tenant's lease. The gesture told the tale to the
few who did not know, and they shouted.

Such pagan delights as these were followed by pagan sloth of evenings
when men and women elsewhere are at their brightest. But Midmore
preferred to lie out on a yellow silk couch, reading works of a debasing
vulgarity; or, by invitation, to dine with the Sperrits and savages of
their kidney. These did not expect flights of fancy or phrasing. They
lied, except about horses, grudgingly and of necessity, not for art's
sake; and, men and women alike, they expressed themselves along their
chosen lines with the serene indifference of the larger animals. Then
Midmore would go home and identify them, one by one, out of the