At this moment he heard the deep bay of a hound.
“Harold!” he exclaimed. The dog, invisible, sprang forward and seized upon his assailant. So violent was the impulse that Egremont staggered and fell, but he fell freed from his dark enemy. Stunned and exhausted, some moments elapsed before he was entirely himself. The wind had suddenly changed; a violent gust had partially dispelled the mist; the outline of the landscape was in many places visible. Beneath him were the rapids of the Mowe, over which a watery moon threw a faint, flickering light. Egremont was lying on its precipitous bank; and Harold panting was leaning over him and looking in his face, and sometimes licking him with that tongue which, though not gifted with speech, had spoken so seasonably in the moment of danger.
END OF THE THIRD BOOK [ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]
BOOK IV
Book 4 Chapter 1
“Are you going down to the house, Egerton?” enquired Mr Berners at Brookes, of a brother M.P., about four o’clock in the early part of the spring of 1839.
“The moment I have sealed this letter; we will walk down together, if you like!” and in a few minutes they left the club.
“Our fellows are in a sort of fright about this Jamaica bill,” said Mr Egerton in an undertone, as if he were afraid a passer-by might overhear him. “Don’t say anything about it, but there’s a screw loose.”
“The deuce! But how do you mean?”