"What, Claude, is that you?" cried the Duke; and a flood of new sensations so changed his voice, that Hunt looked up from where he lay, a beaten, bleeding, blubbering mass. But in the silent revelation of that moment there was at first no sound save the barking of the fox-terrier outside the saddle-room door. This had never ceased. Then the coachman's pipe fell from his mouth and was smashed.
"My God!" said he. "It's his Grace himself!"
He had driven the Duke from Devenholme the night before.
"The Duke of St. Osmund's!" exclaimed Hunt from the ground. He had been shedding blood and tears indifferently, and now he sat up with a slimy stare in his uninjured eye.
"Yes, that's right," said Jack, with a nod to the company. "So now you all know what to expect for cruelty to cats, or any other dumb animals; and don't you forget it!"
He put on his coat and went over to the saddle-room. Claude followed him, still at a loss for words. And Hunt's dog went into a wild ecstasy as the key was put into the lock.
"Hold him," said Jack. "The dog's all right; and I lay his master'll think twice before he sets him on another cat o' mine."
"Come away," said Claude hoarsely; "for all our sakes, come away before you make bad worse!"
"Well, I will. Only hold him tight. That's it. Poor little puss, then—poor old Livingstone! Now I'm ready; come along."
But Hunt was in their path; and Jack's heart smote him for the mischief he had done, though his own lower lip was swollen like a sausage.