To tell the words which passed between them after that would require Homer’s pathos and Homer’s imagination.  The two old men scowled and scolded at each other, and, had Mr. Fairlawn attempted to pass, Mr. Harkaway would certainly have struck him with his whip.  And behind their master a crowd of the Puckeridge men collected themselves,—­foremost among whom was Joshua Thoroughbung.  “Take ’em round to the covert by Winnipeg Lane,” said Mr. Fairlawn to his huntsman.  The man prepared to take his pack round by Winnipeg Lane, which would have added a mile to the distance.  But the huntsman, when he had got a little to the left, was soon seen scurrying across the country in the direction of the covert, with a dozen others at his heels, and the hounds following him.  But old Mr. Harkaway had seen it too, and having possession of the road, galloped along it at such a pace that no one could pass him.

All the field declared that they had regarded it as impossible that their master should move so fast.  And Dillon, and the whips, and Thoroughbung, and Harry Annesley, with half a dozen others, kept pace with him.  They would not sit there and see their master outmanoeuvred by any lack of readiness on their part.  They got to the covert first, and there, with their whips drawn, were ready to receive the second pack.  Then one hound went in without an order; but for their own hounds they did not care.  They might find a fox and go after him, and nobody would follow them.  The business here at the covert-side was more important and more attractive.

Then it was that Mr. Thoroughbung nearly fell into danger.  As to the other hounds,—­Mr. Fairlawn’s hounds,—­doing any harm in the covert, or doing any good for themselves or their owners, that was out of the question.  The rival pack was already there, with their noses up in the air, and thinking of anything but a fox; and this other pack,—­the Hitchiners,—­were just as wild.  But it was the object of Mr. Fairlawn’s body-guard to say that they had drawn the covert in the teeth of Mr. Harkaway, and to achieve this one of the whips thought that he could ride through the Puckeridge men, taking a couple of hounds with him.  That would suffice for triumph.

But to prevent such triumph on the part of the enemy Joshua Thoroughbung was prepared to sacrifice himself.  He rode right at the whip, with his own whip raised, and would undoubtedly have ridden over him had not the whip tried to turn his horse sharp round, stumbled and fallen in the struggle, and had not Thoroughbung, with his horse, fallen over him.

It will be the case that a slight danger or injury in one direction will often stop a course of action calculated to create greater dangers and worse injuries.  So it was in this case.  When Dick, the Hitchin whip, went down, and Thoroughbung, with his horse, was over him,—­two men and two horses struggling together on the ground,—­all desire to carry on the fight was over.