ut what happened behind them, and far-off stragglers, who were as
likely as not to pass quite aloof from the line of road in which
Wildfire had fallen. Dunstan, whose nature it was to care more for
immediate annoyances than for remote consequences, no sooner recovered
his legs, and saw that it was all over with Wildfire, than he felt a
satisfaction at the absence of witnesses to a position which no
swaggering could make enviable. Reinforcing himself, after his shake,
with a little brandy and much swearing, he walked as fast as he could
to a coppice on his right hand, through which it occurred to him that
he could make his way to Batherley without danger of encountering any
member of the hunt. His first intention was to hire a horse there and
ride home forthwith, for to walk many miles without a gun in his hand,
and along an ordinary road, was as much out of the question to him as
to other spirited young men of his kind. He did not much mind about
taking the bad news to Godfrey, for he had to offer him at the same
time the resource of Marner's money; and if Godfrey kicked, as he
always did, at the notion of making a fresh debt from which he himself
got the smallest share of advantage, why, he wouldn't kick long:
Dunstan felt sure he could worry Godfrey into anything. The idea of
Marner's money kept growing in vividness, now the want of it had become
immediate; the prospect of having to make his appearance with the muddy
boots of a pedestrian at Batherley, and to encounter the grinning
queries of stablemen, stood unpleasantly in the way of his impatience
to be back at Raveloe and carry out his felicitous plan; and a casual
visitation of his waistcoat-pocket, as he was ruminating, awakened his
memory to the fact that the two or three small coins his forefinger
encountered there were of too pale a colour to cover that small debt,
without payment of which the stable-keeper had declared he would never
do any more business with Dunsey Cass. After all, according to the
direction in which the run had brought him, he was not so very much
farther from home than he was from Batherley; but Dunsey, not being
remarkable for clearness of head, was only led to this conclusion by
the gradual perception that there were other reasons for choosing the
unprecedented course of walking home. It was now nearly four o'clock,
and a mist was gathering: the sooner he got into the road the better.
He remembered having crossed the road and seen th