52 THE HAUGHTYSHIRE HUNT. 



Gravity's watchfulness notwithstanding, Miss Comely had 

 by no means abandoned hope of eventually posing as 

 ' Your Grace.' 



Now that the gallop was over and there was no more fun 

 to be had out of it, Master Jack thought he would go back to 

 look after his very dear friend, Binkie. Jack had caught 

 sight of him and his horse in the big drain as he jumped it at 

 a narrower part himself, but he had taken care not to see him 

 ' officially.' It really is so annoying that one's friends always 

 seem to make a point of coming to grief just on the days one 

 is going well oneself. Mr. Dashwood quietly walked his tired 

 beast back to the fatal spot, saluting Mr. Binkie with a ' view 

 holloa ' as he arrived, and beheld his bedraggled friend 

 standing dripping on the bank. 



" What ho, my piebald sportsman ! you've been and gone 

 and done it now, I don't think ! Well, if haughty ambition 

 irill lead the field, haughty ambition must pay for the honour, 

 eh '? How's 3' our feelings, cockie ? " 



' Trousers ' tried to smile pleasantly, but only succeeded 

 in producing a somewhat ghastly grin. His teeth were 

 chattering with the cold, and the mud was fast drying on 

 him in cakes. His hat was broken, and one boot had been 

 pulled off in the sticky clay. Altogether, he was distinctly 

 an object for pity. As to his horse, he was not making the 

 slightest effort to help in extricating that good, if misguided 

 beast, and poor Ben, unaided, looked very like stopping in the 

 ditch all night in the hopeless task. 



Jack slipped off his horse, and, leaving it to its own 

 devices, made a close inspection of the fallen, and now stuck- 

 fast animal. 



