THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 315 



"Then," said Russell, I'll promise to kill 

 him." 



That was enough ; up went the scale of duty 

 to the beam ; John instantly turned his horse's 

 head and followed the hounds. Russell kept 

 his word, had a line run and killed his fox ; 

 but, alas ! John Zeal found himself, when they 

 finished, not only twenty long miles away from 

 Bideford, but on a horse utterly used up and 

 scarcely able to crawl back to his own stable. 



The cause of his servant's detention became, 

 of course, known to Mr. Palmer Ackland ; nor 

 is it at all unlikely that Russell's chance of 

 promotion to a better living was more or less 

 unfavourably affected by that circumstance. The 

 rectory of High Bray had fallen vacant, and 

 being in the gift of that gentleman, he was 

 asked by a mutual friend to give it to Russell. 



"No!" he said, somewhat curtly; "not to 

 Russell ; I shall be hunted to death if I give 

 it to him." 



Although living in times when cock-fighting 

 was regarded as no crime, but, on the contrary, 

 was upheld as a popular pastime, in which the 

 squirearchy of Devon played a conspicuous part ; 

 when friends of his own, gentlemen of such 

 standing in the county as the Hon. Newton 

 Fellowes, Willoughby Stawell, Stucley Lucas, 

 and Dr. Troyte, of Huntsham, held annual bouts 

 for that purpose at their respective homes ; 



