A SECOND FOX. 153 



Prudence, as you dig- your lieels into Margery's sides ; 

 " but then they may not be able to keep to him, or he'll be 

 headed, perhaps ; and as you only came up here for com- 

 pany, you may as well go on with them, now you have 

 beg'un ag-ain.' ' 



Prudence sugg-ests all this with something' of a sneer, 

 as '^ Who is rig-ht now?" But there is no time to parley 

 with her, for the Captain's friend is threading- a line of 

 pl-antations, with every hound on to him. Their courage 

 is fairly roused again by this ; but Marg-ery scarcely 

 warms up so quickly, and it is all we can do to keep on 

 terms with him. 



^' D'ye think the mare pulls as hard as she did ?" asks 

 Prudence in that very disag-reeable tone she is occasion- 

 ally in the habit of using-. 



But we haven't either patience or leisure to attend her 

 just now, for Marg-ery comes all but on her head at a bit 

 of a drop, which Mr. Hastie flew like a swallow, and old 



Yeomans dropped into like a duck. 



***** 



The Captain's fox turned out, in the especial vernacular 

 of that distinguished service, *' a reg-ular clipper." He is 

 known as such still in the three several counties he touched 

 on. It is not my intention to follow him through the 

 whole of ^^ this splendid day's sport" — as they called it 

 in the county paper — for I candidly confess that T did not 

 see it — at least, not right out, from end to end. I went, 

 liowever, as far and as well as I could, and I must do 

 Margery the justice to add that she seconded me most 

 nobly. Unfortunately, the further we went, on a propor- 

 tionately worse understanding did I get with Prudence. 

 It looked, indeed, very like coming to an open rupture, 

 until Margery, herself in a great measure the cause of it, 



