could let myself off in that way. I told you, kind reader, I was only an
old boy. But, as the Arabs always give God thanks when they see a
beautiful woman, and quite right too! so, in my heart, I praised God who
had made a mare with such muscles, and a man with such a heart. And I said
to myself, "A fine muscle is a fine thing; but the finest muscle of all,
keeping the others going too, is the heart itself. That is the true
Christian muscle. And the real muscular Christianity is that which pours
in a life-giving torrent from the devotion of the heart, receiving only
that it may give."

But I fancy I hear my reader saying,

"Mr. Smith, you've forgotten the fox. What a sportsman you make!"

Well, I had forgotten the fox. But then we didn't kill him or find another
that day. So you won't care for the rest of the run.

I was tired enough by the time we got back to Purleybridge. I went early
to bed.

The next morning, the colonel, the moment we met at the breakfast table,
said to me,

"You did not hear, Smith, what that young rascal of a doctor said to Lord
Irksham last night?"

"No, what was it?"

"It seems they met again towards evening, and his lordship said to him:
'You hare-brained young devil!'--you know his lordship's rough way,"