"Yes; I think I did. I dare say his bones are sore. I know mine are. But I don't care for that in the least. When this day comes to be talked about, as I dare say it will be for many a long year, no one will be able to say that the Hitchiners got into that covert." Thoroughbung, with the genuine modesty of an Englishman, would not say that he had achieved by his own prowess all this glory for the Puckeridge Hunt, but he felt it down to the very end of his nails.
Had he not been there that whip would have got into the wood, and a very different tale would then have been told in those coming years to which his mind was running away with happy thoughts. He had ridden the aggressors down; he had stopped the first intrusive hound. But though he continued to talk of the subject, he did not boast in so many words that he had done it. His "veni, vidi, vici," was confined to his own bosom.
As they rode home together there came to be a little crowd of men round Thoroughbung, giving him the praises that were his due. But one by one they fell off from Annesley's side of the road. He soon felt that no one addressed a word to him. He was, probably, too prone to encourage them in this. It was he that fell away, and courted loneliness, and then in his heart accused them. There was no doubt something of truth in his accusations; but another man, less sensitive, might have lived it down. He did more than meet their coldness half-way, and then complained to himself of the bitterness of the world. "They are like the beasts of the field," he said, "who when another beast has been wounded, turn upon him and rend him to death." His future brother-in-law, the best natured fellow that ever was born, rode on thoughtless, and left Harry alone for three or four miles, while he received the pleasant plaudits of his companions. In Joshua's heart was that tale of the whip's discomfiture. He did not see that Molly's brother was alone as soon as he would have done but for his own glory. "He is the same as the others," said Harry to himself. "Because that man has told a falsehood of me, and has had the wit to surround it with circumstances, he thinks it becomes him to ride away and cut me." Then he asked himself some foolish questions as to himself and as to Joshua Thoroughbung, which he did not answer as he should have done, had he remembered that he was then riding Thoroughbung's horse, and that his sister was to become Thoroughbung's wife.
After half an hour of triumphant ovation, Joshua remembered his brother-in-law, and did fall back so as to pick him up. "What's the matter, Harry? Why don't you come on and join us?"
"I'm sick of hearing of that infernal squabble."
"Well; as to a squabble, Mr. Harkaway behaved quite right. If a hunt is to be kept up, the right of entering coverts must be preserved for the hunt they belong to. There was no line shown. You must remember that there isn't a doubt about that. The hounds were all astray when we joined them. It's a great question whether they brought their fox into that first covert. There are they who think that Bodkin was just riding across the Puckeridge country in search of a fox." Bodkin was Mr. Fairlawn's huntsman. "If you admit that kind of thing, where will you be? As a hunting country, just nowhere. Then as a sportsman, where are you? It is necessary to put down such gross fraud. My own impression is that Mr. Fairlawn should be turned out from being master. I own I feel very strongly about it. But then I always have been fond of hunting."
"Just so," said Harry, sulkily, who was not in the least interested as to the matter on which Joshua was so eloquent.
Then Mr. Proctor rode by, the gentleman who in the early part of the day disgusted Harry by calling him "mister." "Now, Mr. Proctor," continued Joshua, "I appeal to you whether Mr. Harkaway was not quite right? If you won't stick up for your rights in a hunting county—" But Mr. Proctor rode on, wishing them good-night, very discourteously declining to hear the remainder of the brewer's arguments. "He's in a hurry, I suppose," said Joshua.
"You'd better follow him. You'll find that he'll listen to you then."
"I don't want him to listen to me particularly."