A DISTINGUISHED STRANGER. 77 



" A very good thing he has headed him ! " says Lord 

 Heahngborough ; " now there's nothing for him but Rasp- 

 berry Wood or the main earths at Birkett Hill, for there's not 

 cover enough for a wren in Willingham." 



" I wonder who the fellow is ! " he muses. " Didn't see 

 him at the meet, so he must have slipped on to Rapsley 

 thinking we should draw there first. The beggar rides, too, 

 and its a good fencer he has got; reminds me of poor old 

 Tom's Midnight. Do you know our friend on the right, 

 Beverley ? " he asks. 



" I neither know nor care," snaps the master, " but he'll be 

 overriding my hounds directly, and I'll make an example 

 of him." 



" Not he. I'd give him leave to override them if he can ; " 

 for the pack are skimming over the country like white- 

 winged gulls, a good field in front, and the pace quickening 

 each minute." 



The jumping had been fairly simple hitherto, but now 

 til ere are some rasping oxers, a couple of brooks, and the 

 river Thissendine between Rapsley and Birkett Hill, and Mr. 

 Robert Beverley's heart begins to fail him. Thanks, how- 

 ever, to some easy places in the fences and his good luck in 

 striking the Beltford brook in a narrow place, he is able to 

 keep well with hounds, his hunter — a good one — being equal 

 to anything jumpable ; but now come big 'uns, and he de- 

 liberately " funks " two fences in the line, which loses him his 

 place. 



"Isn't this glorious, Charlie?" says Lady Winifred, as she 

 leads well over a stake-bound fence with some ox rails on one 

 side and a ditch on the other. " We get nothing like this 

 with our old slow-coaches." 



The pace and the oxers have reduced the front rank to 

 a dozen ; then the Master nearly comes to grief at the 

 Welbeck, having hesitated and pulled his horse out of his 



