CHAPTER IX


The hunt swept on after the manner of hunts, full of sympathy, having,
as to one man, contributed a silver cigarette case, with which
another, a resourceful medical student, had improvised a splint, but
feeling, not without relief, that they could do nothing more; feeling
also, with depression, that the Lord only knew where the devils had
run to by this time, but that that couldn't be helped; with which
philosophic reflection and many valedictory shouts of commiseration,
the last of them had vanished over the hill.

The unfortunate Charles restored to guardianship, now found himself
with Miss Judith, lost; Miss Christian soaked to the skin, eight miles
or more from her home; Master Larry ditto, in much pain, no nearer to
his, and unable to mount his horse, which latter would have to be led
over a succession of fences to the nearest road; (and no matter with
what distinction an elderly coachman can drive a pair of horses on a
road, it is very far from being the same thing to get a pair of horses
across a country). It was, therefore, a very gloomy party that set
face for the nearest highway. The intricacies of procedure at each
jump need not here be dealt with, but it may be said that a more
thankful man than Charles, when he again felt the good macadam under
his feet, is not often met with. He would at that moment have said
that he could not have felt an intenser gratitude than suffused him as
he saw his convoy safe off the hills; but there he would have
over-stated the case, since, scarcely five minutes after the road had