Stephen resumed his pipe amid a din of disappointment that made the walls
ring and the glasses leap.

"A little more sugar, Stephen?" said Mrs. Boulby, moving in lightly from
the doorway.

"Thank ye, mum; you're the best hostess that ever breathed."

"So she be; but how about Bob?" cried her guests--some asking whether he
carried a pistol or flourished a stick.

"Ne'er a blessed twig, to save his soul; and there's the madness written
on him;" Stephen roared as loud as any of them. "And me to see him
riding in the ring there, and knowing what the gentleman had sworn to do
if he came across the hunt; and feeling that he was in the wrong! I
haven't got a oath to swear how mad I was. Fancy yourselves in my place.
I love old Bob. I've drunk with him; I owe him obligations from since I
was a boy up'ard; I don't know a better than Bob in all England. And
there he was: and says to Mr. Algernon, 'You know what I'm come for.' I
never did behold a gentleman so pale--shot all over his cheeks as he was,
and pinkish under the eyes; if you've ever noticed a chap laid hands on
by detectives in plain clothes. Smack at Bob went Mr. Edward's whip."

"Mr. Algernon's," Stephen was corrected.

"Mr. Edward's, I tell ye--the cousin. And right across the face. My
Lord! it made my blood tingle."

A sound like the swish of a whip expressed the sentiments of that
assemblage at the Pilot.