<iAnthony Trollope 



As they got within view of Littleton Gorse, Hampton, 

 Lord Rufford, and Tony had the best of it, though two or 

 three farmers were very close to them. At this moment 

 Tony's mind was much disturbed, and he looked round 

 more than once for Captain Glomax. Captain Glomax had 

 got into the brook, and had then ridden down to the high 

 road which ran here near to them, and which, as he knew, 

 ran within one field of the gorse. He had lost his place and 

 had got a ducking, and was a little out of humour with things 

 in general. It had not been his purpose to go to Impington 

 on this day, and he was still, in his mind, saying evil things 

 of the U.R.U. respecting that poisoned fox. Perhaps he 

 was thinking, as itinerant masters often must think, that it 

 was very hard to have to bear so many unpleasant things for 

 a poor j(^2000 a year, and meditating, as he had done for the 

 last two seasons, a threat that unless the money were in- 

 creased, he wouldn't hunt the country more than three times 

 a week. As Tony got near to the gorse, and also near to the 

 road, he managed with infinite skill to get the hounds oflF 

 the scent, and to make a fictitious cast to the left as though 

 he thought the fox had traversed that way. Tony knew 

 well enough that the fox was at that moment in Littleton 

 Gorse ; but he knew also that the gorse was only six acres, 

 that such a fox as he had before him wouldn't stay there 

 two minutes after the first hound was in it, and that Dills- 

 borough Wood — which to his imagination was full of poison 

 — would then be only a mile and a half before him. Tony, 

 whose fault was a tendency to mystery — as is the fault of 



275 



