"Seen the fox! why, I forgot all about the fox! But--but haven't we
seen it before? haven't we been after it _all day_?"

"No, we've only got scent of if once or twice."

"Well, well," exclaimed Queeker, turning up his eyes, "I declare we have
had as good fun as if we had been after the fox in full sight all the
time!"

"Here is a somewhat peculiar leap," said Stoutheart, reining up as they
approached a fence, on the other side of which was a high-road, "I'll go
first, to show you the way."

The peculiarity of the leap lay in the fact that it was a drop of about
four feet into the road, which was lower, to that extent, than the
field, and that the side of the road into which the riders had to drop
was covered with scrubby bushes. To men accustomed to it this was a
trifle. Most of the field had already taken it, though a few cautious
riders had gone round by a gate.

When Queeker came to try it he felt uneasy--sitting as he did so high,
and looking down such a precipice as it seemed to him. However, he shut
his eyes, and courageously gave the accustomed chirp, and Slapover
plunged down. Queeker held tight to the saddle, and although much
shaken, would have come out of the ordeal all right, had not Slapover
taken it into his head to make a second spring over a low bush which
stood in front of him. On the other side of this bush there was an old
pump. Queeker lost his balance, threw out his arms, fell off, was
hurled violently against the old pump, and his right leg was broken!

A cart was quickly procured, and on trusses of straw the poor huntsman
was driven sadly and slowly, back to Jenkinsjoy, where he was tenderly
put to bed and carefully nursed for several weeks by his hospitable and
sympathising friends.

Queeker bore his misfortune like a Stoic, chiefly because it developed
the great fact that Fanny Hennings wept a whole night and a day after
its occurrence, insomuch that her fair face became so swollen as to have
lost much of its identity and all its beauty--a fact which filled
Queeker with hopes so high that his recovery was greatly hastened by the
contented, almost joyous, manner in which he submitted to his fate.

Of course Queeker's secret mission was, for the _time_ being, at an
end;--and thus it came to pass that an old pump, as we said at the
beginning of this chapter, was the cause of the failure of several
deep-laid plans, and of much bodily anguish and mental felicity to the
youthful Nim