This haughty answer, and the disappointment of all his hopes and schemes
respecting the heronry, threw Marvel into a degree of rage scarcely
inferior to what was felt by Sir Plantagenet. As he was galloping down
the avenue from Plantagenet-hall, he overtook a young man, of a shabby
appearance, who was mounted upon a very fine horse. At first Marvel took
it for granted that he was one of Sir Plantagenet's _people_, and he was
riding past him, when he heard the stranger say, in a friendly tone,
"Your horse gallops well, sir: but have a care; there's a carrion a
little way farther on that may startle him."

Marvel pulled in his horse; the stranger rode up beside him, and they
entered into conversation. "That carrion, sir," said he, pointing to the
dead horse, which had just been shot for the baronet's son's hounds,
"that carrion, sir, was in my opinion the best horse Sir Plantagenet,
or his son either, were possessed of. 'Tis a shame for any man, who
pretends to be a gentleman, and who talks this way and that so high of
his family, should be so stingy in the article of horseflesh."

Marvel was not unwilling at this instant to hear the haughty baronet
blamed and ridiculed; and his companion exactly fell in with his humour,
by telling a variety of anecdotes to prove Sir Plantagenet to be every
thing that was odious and contemptible. The history of his insolence
about the heronry was now related by Marvel; and the stranger seemed to
sympathize so much in his feelings, that, from a stranger, he began to
consider him as a friend. Insensibly the conversation returned to the
point at which it commenced; and his new friend observed that it was in
vain to expect any thing good from any gentleman, or indeed from any
man, who was stingy in the article of horseflesh.

A new sense of honour and of shame began to rise in our hero's mind; and