CHAPTER XXXI. 



"All is fair in love and war," says the adage which has 

 found acceptance for many a year. Possibly it is a rule 

 which has exceptions, at least in calmer moments we can 

 certainly devise circumstances into which the spirit of fair- 

 play would not have entered. 



When Captain Majendie and the sporting young doctor 

 from Allington were, with one or two more, the guests of 

 the officers of the cavalry depot at Mulchester, it occurred to 

 them at a late sitting in a corner of the ante-room that there 

 would be no harm in providing themselves with a good 

 gallop on the occasion of the opening meet of the Cranston 

 at Casselton, and they came to the conclusion that there 

 would be no danger of discovery at the hands of a girl. 



'' Hunting is all very well when you get a clinking good 

 gallop," said one young subaltern with more money than 

 brains. *' I confess if I go out to ride I like to ride, and 

 hate the pottering about." 



Majendie, a little sore from the straightforward speech of 

 Mr. Badsworth, and the arm's-length treatment of Miss 

 Badsworth and her niece, thought it might be well to make 

 friends of the mammon of unrighteousness and pay off a score 

 or two at the same time ; so eventually it was agreed, out of 

 hearing of any senior officer, that arrangements should be 

 made by which a certain run should be secured over a certain 

 line of country, terminating at a certain river at a point where 

 neither ford nor bridge was immediately at hand. Moreover 

 funds were subscribed and taken charge of by Majendie, who 

 had in his eye a certain loafer of the neighbourhood who 

 for half the amount would carry out the necessary details, 



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