oners, to have been born legislators,--who all spoke to
him as though his being member for Tankerville and hunting with the
Brake hounds were equally matters of course. They knew him, but they
knew nothing of the break in his life. Or if they remembered that he
had not been seen about the House for the last two or three years
they remembered also that accidents do happen to some men. It will
occur now and again that a regular denizen of Westminster will get
a fall in the political hunting-field, and have to remain about the
world for a year or two without a seat. That Phineas had lately
triumphed over Browborough at Tankerville was known, the event
having been so recent; and men congratulated him, talking of poor
Browborough,--whose heavy figure had been familiar to them for many
a year,--but by no means recognising that the event of which they
spoke had been, as it were, life and death to their friend. Roby was
there, who was at this moment Mr. Daubeny's head whip and patronage
secretary. If any one should have felt acutely the exclusion of Mr.
Browborough from the House,--any one beyond the sufferer himself,--it
should have been Mr. Roby; but he made himself quite pleasant, and
even condescended to be jocose upon the occasion. "So you've beat
poor Browborough in his own borough," said Mr. Roby.

"I've beat him," said Phineas; "but not, I hope, in a borough of his
own."

"He's been there for the last fifteen years. Poor old fellow! He's
awfully cut up about this Church Question. I shouldn't have thought
he'd have taken anything so much to heart. There are worse fellows
than Browborough, let me tell you. What's all this I hear about the
Duke poisoning the foxes?" But the crowd had begun to move, and
Phineas was not called upon to answer the question.

Copperhouse Cross in the Brake Hunt was a very popular meet. It
was easily reached by a train from London, was in the centre of an
essentially hunting country, was near to two or three good coverts,
and was in itself a pretty spot. Two roads intersected each other on
the middle of Copperhouse Common, which, as all the world knows, lies
just on the outskirts of Copperhouse Forest. A steep winding hill
leads down from the Wood to the Cross, and there is no such thing
within sight as an enclosure. At the foot of the hill, running under
the wooden bridge, straggles the Copperhouse Brook,--so called by the
hunting men of the present day, though men who know the country of
o