They were passing at a good speed through a varying country—­now a thicket of hazel, now great patches of furze upon open common, and anon well-kept farm-hedges, and clumps of pine, the remnants of ancient forest, when, halfway through a lane so narrow that the rector felt every yard toward the other end a gain, his horses started, threw up their heads, and looked for a moment wild as youth.  Just in front of them, in the air, over a high hedge, scarce touching the topmost twigs with his hoofs, appeared a great red horse.  Down he came into the road, bringing with him a rather tall, certainly handsome, and even at first sight, attractive rider.  A dark brown mustache upon a somewhat smooth sunburned face, and a stern settling of the strong yet delicately finished features gave him a military look; but the sparkle of his blue eyes contradicted his otherwise cold expression.  He drew up close to the hedge to make room for the carriage, but as he neared him Mr. Bevis slackened his speed, and during the following talk they were moving gently along with just room for the rider to keep clear of the off fore wheel.

“Heigh, Faber,” said the clergyman, “you’ll break your neck some day!  You should think of your patients, man.  That wasn’t a jump for any man in his senses to take.”

“It is but fair to give my patients a chance now and then,” returned the surgeon, who never met the rector but there was a merry passage between them.

“Upon my word,” said Mr. Bevis, “when you came over the hedge there, I took you for Death in the Revelations, that had tired out his own and changed horses with t’other one.”

As he spoke, he glanced back with a queer look, for he found himself guilty of a little irreverence, and his conscience sat behind him in the person of his wife.  But that conscience was a very easy one, being almost as incapable of seeing a joke as of refusing a request.

“—­How many have you bagged this week?” concluded the rector.

“I haven’t counted up yet,” answered the surgeon. “—­You’ve got one behind, I see,” he added, signing with his whip over his shoulder.

“Poor old thing!” said the rector, as if excusing himself, “she’s got a heavy basket, and we all need a lift sometimes—­eh, doctor?—­into the world and out again, at all events.”

There was more of the reflective in this utterance than the parson was in the habit of displaying; but he liked the doctor, and, although as well as every one else he knew him to be no friend to the church, or to Christianity, or even to religious belief of any sort, his liking, coupled with a vague sense of duty, had urged him to this most unassuming attempt to cast the friendly arm of faith around the unbeliever.

“I plead guilty to the former,” answered Faber, “but somehow I have never practiced the euthanasia.  The instincts of my profession, I suppose are against it.  Besides, that ought to be your business.”