“They all seemed to be very angry with each other at that narrow gate”

“They were in a hurry, I suppose.”

“Two of them jumped over the hedge.  Why didn’t they all jump?  How long will it be now before they catch him?”

“Very probably they may not catch him at all.”

“Not catch him after all that!  Then the man was certainly right to poison that other fox in the wood.  How long will they go on?”

“Half an hour perhaps.”

“And you call that hunting!  Is it worth the while of all those men to expend all that energy for such a result?  Upon the whole, Mr. Morton, I should say that it is one of the most incomprehensible things that I have ever seen in the course of a rather long and varied life.  Shooting I can understand, for you have your birds.  Fishing I can understand, as you have your fish.  Here you get a fox to begin with, and are all broken-hearted.  Then you come across another, after riding about all day, and the chances are you can’t catch him!”

“I suppose,” said Mr. Morton angrily, “the habits of one country are incomprehensible to the people of another.  When I see Americans loafing about in the bar-room of an hotel, I am lost in amazement.”

“There is not a man you see who couldn’t give a reason for his being there.  He has an object in view, though perhaps it may be no better than to rob his neighbour.  But here there seems to be no possible motive.”

CHAPTER XI

From Impington Gorse

The fox ran straight from the covert through his well-known haunts to Impington Park, and as the hounds were astray there for two or three minutes there was a general idea that he too had got up into a tree,—­which would have amused the Senator very much had the Senator been there.  But neither had the country nor the pace been adapted to wheels, and the Senator and the Paragon were now returning along the road towards Bragton.  The fox had tried his old earths at Impington High wood, and had then skulked back along the outside of the covert.  Had not one of the whips seen him he would have been troubled no further on that day, a fact, which if it could have been explained to the Senator in all its bearings, would greatly have added to his delight.  But Dick viewed him; and with many holloas and much blowing of horns, and prayers from Captain Glomax that gentlemen would only be so good as to hold their tongues, and a full-tongued volley of abuse from half the field against an unfortunate gentleman who rode after the escaping fox before a hound was out of the covert, they settled again to their business.  It was pretty to see the quiet ease and apparent nonchalance and almost affected absence of bustle of those who knew their work,—­among whom were especially to be named young Hampton, and the elder Botsey, and Lord Rufford, and, above all, a dark-visaged, long-whiskered, sombre, military man