would have been in the covert, but, by George! I managed to stop him."

"What did you mean to do to him when you rode at him so furiously?"
asked Harry.

"Not let him get in there. That was my resolute purpose. I suppose I
should have knocked him off his horse with my whip."

"But suppose he had knocked you off your horse?" suggested the banker.

"There is no knowing how that might have been. I never calculated those
chances. When a man wants to do a thing like that he generally does it."

"And you did it?" said Harry.

"Yes; I think I did. I dare say his bones are sore. I know mine are. But
I don't care for that in the least. When this day comes to be talked
about, as I dare say it will be for many a long year, no one will be
able to say that the Hitchiners got into that covert." Thoroughbung,
with the genuine modesty of an Englishman, would not say that he had
achieved by his own prowess all this glory for the Puckeridge Hunt, but
he felt it down to the very end of his nails.

Had he not been there that whip would have got into the wood, and a very
different tale would then have been told in those coming years to which
his mind was running away with happy thoughts. He had ridden the
aggressors down; he had stopped the first intrusive hound. But though he
continued to talk of the subject, he did not boast in so many words that
he had done it. His "veni, vidi, vici," was confined to his own bosom.

As they rode home together there came to be a little crowd of men round
Thoroughbung, giving him the praises that were his due. But one by one
they fell off from Annesley's side of the road. He soon felt that no one
addressed a word to him. He was, probably, too prone to encourage them
in this. It was he that fell away, and courted loneliness, and then in
his heart accused them. There was do doubt something of truth in his
accusations; but another man, less sensitive, might have lived it down.
He did more than meet their coldness half-way, and then complained to
himself of the bitterness of the world. "They are like the beasts of the
field," he said, "who when another beast has been wounded, turn upon him
and rend him to death." His future brother-in-law, the best natured
fellow that ever was born, rode on thoughtless, and left Harry alone for
three or four miles, while he received the pleasant plaudits of his
companions. In Joshua's heart was that tale of the whip's discomfiture.
He did not see that Molly's brother