The first meet of the hounds was at Thornby Place, and in the vain hope of marrying her son, Mrs. Norton had invited the young girls of the entire country-side.  Lady Edith Downsdale was especially included in her designs; but John instantly vetoed her hopes by asking Mike to take Lady Edith in to lunch.  She stood holding her habit; and feeling the necessity of being brilliant, Mike said, pointing to the hounds and horses—­

“How strange it is that that is of no interest to the artist!  I suppose because it is only parade; whereas a bit of lane with a wind-blown hedge is a human emotion, and that is always interesting.”

Soon after, a fox was found in the plantation that rimmed the lawn, and seeing that Lady Edith was watching him, Mike risked a fall over some high wattles; and this was the only notice he took of her until late in the afternoon, until all hope of hunting was ended.  A fox had been “chopped” in cover, another had been miserably coursed and killed in a back garden.  He strove to make himself agreeable while riding with her along the hillsides, watching the huntsman trying each patch of gorse in the coombes.  She seemed to him splendid and charming, and he wondered if he could love her—­marry her, and never grow weary of her.  But when the hounds found in a large wood beneath the hills, and streamed across the meadows, he forgot her, and making his horse go in and out he fought for a start.  A hundred and fifty were cantering down a steep muddy lane; a horseman who had come across the field strove to open a strong farm-gate.  “It is locked,” he roared; “jump.”  The lane was steep and greasy, the gate was four feet and a half.  Mike rode at it.  The animal dropped his hind-legs, Mike heard the gate rattle, and a little ejaculatory cry come from those he left behind.  It was a close shave.  Turning in his saddle he saw the immense crowd pressing about the gate, which could not be opened, and he knew very well that he would have the hounds to himself for many a mile.

He raced alone across the misty pasture lands, full of winter water and lingering leaf; the lofty downs like sea cliffs, appearing through great white masses of curling vapour.  And all the episodes of that day—­the great ox fences which his horse flew, going like a bird from field to field; the awkward stile, the various brooks,—­that one overgrown with scrub which his horse had refused—­thrilled him.  And when the day was done, as he rode through the gathering night, inquiring out the way down many a deep and wooded lane, happiness sang within him, and like a pure animal he enjoyed the sensation of life, and he intoxicated on the thoughts of the friends that would have been his, the women and the numberless pleasures and adventures he could have engaged in, were he not obliged to earn money, or were not led away from them “by his accursed literary tastes.”