“’Tis not possible to hide a handsome young nobleman under a bushel,” the Earl said after but a few days had passed.  “The neighbours will have you to dine, and dance, and hunt with them, whether it is your will or not.  A strapping young fellow must do his duty by the world.”

Roxholm performed his duty with propriety and spirit when it was not to be evaded gracefully.  He dined with country gentlemen, and listened to their songs and stories until most of them drank themselves under the table, as was the spirited fashion of the time.  He answered the questionings of their wives on subjects pertaining to Court fashions and behaviour and,—­perhaps somewhat gravely,—­danced attendance on the daughters, who most of them, it is true, were used to less courtly manners and voted him in private far too grave and majestic for such a beauty.

“He hath a way of bowing that would give one a fright, were his eyes not so handsome and his smile so sweet,” said one lovely ardent hoyden.  “Lord! just to watch him standing near with that noble grave look on his face, and not giving one a thought, makes one’s heart go pit-a-pat.  A man hath no right to be such a beauty—­and to be so, and to be a Duke’s son, too, is a burning shame.  ’Tis wicked that one man should have so much to give to one woman.”

’Twas but a week before Roxholm left his kinsman’s house, that they spent a day together hunting with a noted pack over the borders of Gloucestershire.  The sport was in a neighbourhood where the gentry were hunting-mad, and chased foxes as many days of the week as fortune and weather favoured them.

“’Tis a rough country,” said my Lord Dunstanwolde, as they rode forth, “and some of those who hunt are wild livers and no credit to their rank, but there is fine old blood among them, and some of the hardest riders and boldest leapers England knows.”  Suddenly he seemed to remember something and turned with an exclamation.  “Upon my soul!” he said, “till this moment I had forgot.  I am too sober an old fogy to hunt with them when I have no young blood near to spur me.  Sir Jeoffry Wildairs will be with them—­if he has not yet broke his neck.”

The country they hunted over proved indeed rough, and the sport exciting.  Roxholm had never seen wilder riding and more daring leaps, and it had also happened that he had not yet gone a-hunting with so boisterous and rollicking a body of gentlemen.  Their knowledge of dogs, foxes, and horseflesh was plainly absolute, but they had no Court manners, being of that clan of country gentry of which London saw but little.  Nearly all the sportsmen were big men and fine ones, with dare-devil bearing, loud voices, and a tendency to loose and profane language.  They roared friendly oaths at each other, had brandy flasks on their persons on which they pulled freely, and, their spirits being heightened thereby, exchanged jokes and allusions not too seemly.

Before the fox was found, Roxholm had marked this and observed also that half a dozen more of the best mounted men were the roughest on the field, being no young scapegraces and frolickers, but men past forty, who wore the aspect of reprobate livers and hard drinkers, and who were plainly boon companions and more intimate with each other than with those not of their party.