Poor Tifto, when he got this very curt epistle, was broken-hearted.  He did not dare to show it.  Day after day he told the livery-stable keeper that he had received no reply, and at last asserted that his appeal had remained altogether unanswered.  Even this he thought was better than acknowledging the rebuff which had reached him.  As regarded the meeting which had been held,—­any further meetings which might be held,—­at The Bobtailed Fox, he did not see the necessity, as he explained it to the livery-stable keeper, of acknowledging that he had written any letter to Lord Silverbridge.

The letter to Mr Jawstock was of course brought forward.  Another meeting at The Bobtailed Fox was convened.  But in the meantime hunting had been discontinued in the Runnymede country.  The Major with all his pluck, with infinite cherry brandy, could not do it.  Men who had a few weeks since been on very friendly terms, and who had called each other Dick and Harry when the squabble first began, were now talking of ‘punching’ each other’s heads.  Special whips had been procured by men who intended to ride, and special bludgeons by the young farmers who intended that nobody should ride as long as Major Tifto kept the hounds.  It was said that the police would interfere.  It was whispered that the hounds would be shot,—­though Mr Topps, Mr Jawstock, and others declared that no crime so heinous as that had ever been contemplated in the Runnymede country.

The difficulties were too many for poor Tifto, and the hounds were not brought out again under his influence.

A second meeting was summoned, and an invitation was sent to the Major similar to that which he had before received;—­but on this occasion he did not appear.  Nor were there any gentlemen down from London.  The second meeting might almost have been called select.  Mr Mahogany Topps was there of course, in the chair, and Mr Jawstock took the place of honour and of difficulty on his right hand.  There was the young gentleman from Bagshot, who considered himself quite fit to take Tifto’s place if somebody else would pay the bills and settle the money, and there was the sporting old parson from Croppingham.  Three or four other members of the hunt were present, and perhaps half-a-dozen farmers, ready to declare that Major Tifto should never be allowed to cross their fields again.

But there was no opposition.  Mr Jawstock read the young lord’s note, and declared that it was quite as much as he expected.  He considered that the note, short as it was, must be decisive.  Major Tifto in appealing to Lord Silverbridge, had agreed to abide by his Lordship’s answer, and that answer was now before them.  Mr Jawstock ventured to propose that Major Tifto should be declared to be no longer Master of the Runnymede Hounds.  The parson from Croppingham seconded the proposition, and Major Tifto was formally deposed.

CHAPTER 59