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.”

“I thought you did.”  Then for half an hour the two men rode on in silence.

“What’s the matter with you Harry?” said Joshua.  “I can see there’s something up that riles you.  I know you’re a fellow of your college, and have other things to think of besides the vagaries of a fox.”

“The fellow of a college!” said Harry, who, had he been in a good-humor, would have thought much more of being along with a lot of fox-hunters than of any college honors.

“Well, yes; I suppose it is a great thing to be a fellow of a college.  I never could have been one if I had mugged forever.”

“My being a fellow of a college won’t do me much good.  Did you see that old man Proctor go by just now?”

“Oh yes; he never likes to be out after a certain hour.”

“And did you see Florin, and Mr. Harkaway, and a lot of others?  You yourself have been going on ahead for the last hour without speaking to me.”

“How do you mean without speaking to you?” said Joshua, turning sharp round.

Then Harry Annesley reflected that he was doing an injustice to his future brother-in-law.