"Dang your ugly mug," says Tom to him, as soon as Sir John is out of hearing; "you thought to come the clever over me and t' hounds, did yer? Ugh, they'd no more eat a bag fox than they'd touch your dirty overgrown carcass. I'd like to gi' yer what for, big as yer are;" and then the hounds crash over into the witheys, and Tom begins to draw. From the way they dash there is no doubt of a good fox this time, and presently a whimper from Bonnibel strikes the key-note. Up and down the Osiers twice he goes, with the pack close at him, and then away. No. One of the Keeper's satellites, and under-Velveteens, heads him, and he sneaks back along the wet ditch, while the hounds flash into the grass-field.
"Tall'o baik," screams Charles, who has seen it. "Will you take yourself away from there?" and Velveteens removes himself and feels humble.
One more round, and then he does go, and sets his head straight for Colliston, a grand line, grass the whole way. The first fifty minutes is racing pace, and the grief over the big fences plentiful. Four or five minutes are lost in a small pit-hole by a farm, where the fox had tried an earth, and then they are away again, rolling him over in the open twenty minutes later.
"A real good thing," is the unanimous verdict, and the Master is only too glad to tell Mr. Betteridge, when he arrives (which he does after all has been over some time) that the present animal makes up for the morning's performance, whereat the heart of "Cottonopolis" is made joyful again.
As they ride together to the next draw—Colliston Gorse—Mr. Betteridge begs Sir John to come and dine with him that night quite alone, and to help him to interview Mr. James. Sir John, foreseeing a good result, accepts, and after dinner, at which meal Mr. Betteridge hears some good wholesome truths, Mr. James is sent for.
Directly he appears and sees Sir John he knows it is all up, and that the "Hearl" will not serve him a bit; and his heart fails when Sir John commences by saying: "Your master has left the matter on which we have sent for you entirely in my hands." Then, after keeping him on tenter-hooks for a quarter of an hour, and turning the man inside out, he relieves him by saying: "The fox from the Osiers saved you, but Mr. Betteridge has given his word of honour that the next time the hounds come here and there are no foxes—wild ones I mean—that day is your last with him, and you go—without a character."
Mr. James, humbled and apologetic, commences a long string of protestations and assurances of amendment, but is cut short by "That will do; go and act, don't talk." Betteridge thinks the Master the most wonderful man, and cannot make out how he braved Mr. James and the "Hearl" so cleverly; but he is awfully grateful, and being a man of his word it is to be hoped that in future there will be foxes at Medemere, and that he will no longer be under the thumb of—the Keeper.