“Big as blood elefunks,” said Monkey Brand in the awed voice of a worshipper.  “Flip a couple o’ ton across country singin’ hallelooyah all the way.”

The Duke, when first they appeared with his hounds at the covertside, shook his head over them:  for Jim Silver came south with a formidable reputation as a thruster.

“Too classy for my country, Silver,” he said.  “What d’you want with that sort of stuff down here?”

“I didn’t like to part with ’em, sir,” replied the young man.  “They’ve done me well in their time.”

“I don’t want you young bloods from the shires down here,” scolded the Duke.  “You’ll be all over my hounds.  This is an old man’s country, ain’t it, Boy?”

Thunderbolt stood on his hind legs and pawed deliberately at the heavens.

“They’re big, your Grace,” answered the girl.  “But Mr. Silver’s bigger.  He can hold them.”

“And you can hold him, my dear,” said the Duke.  “Keep him in your pocket, there’s a good gal.  Now, Joe, let’s be moving on.”

The Duke was fond of the girl.  It was said, indeed, that he liked her better than anybody in the hunt.  Certainly he was never so happy as when showing her round his famous piggeries at Raynor’s, or talking goats to her at an Agricultural Show.

Boy on her side was one of the most regular followers of the Duke’s hounds; but, as she never tired of impressing on her friends, she hunted for professional reasons, and not for pleasure.  Indeed, she was honest as always when she declared that she did not care for hunting for its own sake.  There was so much swank about it and so little business:  oceans of gossip, flirting, swagger, and spite to every ounce of reality.  Moreover, her refined and Puritan spirit revolted against the people who hunted:  she thought of them all as bubbles, brilliant apparently, but liable to burst at any moment and leave nothing behind them but a taint of vulgarity.

When hounds were running people saw little of Silver and the girl, who were always well behind.

“Carrying on together,” was the spiteful comment of those whom Boy was wont to call in scorn “the ladies.”

But it was not true.  The pair were not coffee-housing.  Boy was at her job, schooling her youngsters with incomparable patience, judgment, and decision; and Jim Silver, on those great fretting weight-carriers of his, was marking time and in attendance.

The Duke, when he got the pair alone, never tired of chaffing them.

“I notice she always gives you the lead, Silver,” he mocked.

“Yes, sir,” replied the young man.  “She makes the hole, and I creep through it afterward.”

The couple were talked about, of course; and both were dimly aware of it.  Boy was used to being made the subject of gossip; and Silver was almost as unconscious of and aloof from it as were the horses that he rode.

The ladies, to whom he paid no attention, were indignant and resentful.