Mrs. Barton next declared herself liable to nearly as much sorrow for her neighbours’ afflictions as for her own; during which announcement her companion smiled with arch amiability at Maynard. Mr. Pritchard, at the Turk’s Head, paid prodigiously in the articles of rent and taxes; and how he had suffered from his Navarino rival could only be known to those who had been formerly accustomed to see the sporting gentry throng to his inn at this season. He was once proud of the consequence of his inn, as shown by the charges it had to bear; but now, he talked very differently, poor man, about such charges. He had been heard to say, more than once lately, a thing—a fact—something which he would hardly say to the young gentlemen who were now occupying his best apartments.— What could this be?—After much pressing on the one side, and “Shall I, Miss Biggs?” on the other, it appeared that Pritchard complained of his house having been for years taxed nearly three times as much as Fellbrow itself. No one could believe it, as Mrs. Barton had told the complainant. It was impossible that any one could credit it. “I can, ma’am,” said Maynard. “I heard a good deal of that matter in London; and I dare say some of the same ridiculous confusion and partiality,—or I should rather say inequality,—may exist in this place. But, halloo, what comes here? Please to let me in, ladies. If you will let me in, and shut the door—I never could abide these packs of those animals,—a very different thing from carrying one quiet little creature like this. There! look how it hugs me, at the very hearing and sight of the pack! Now we shall do!” Mrs. Barton rejoiced in such an opportunity for hospitality. She became suddenly remarkably afraid of a pack of harriers, and took care that the door was fastened as securely as if harriers had been especially addicted to eating and drinking pomatum and lavender water. Miss Biggs kneeled to the spaniel, and coaxed it till sent by a sign from her mistress to bring a little glass of fine cordial for their guest, whom they declared they should keep fast prisoner till all danger of encountering that dreadful pack of dogs was past. There was an upper window from which their progress could be traced for some distance; and the cook was called from cooking the “little rasher” to take her station at this watch-post. Maynard had so much to say about his young master’s love of sport, and his young mistress’s virtues and graces, and the wealth of them all, that there was little chance of the spaniel having its usual airing this morning. The inventory of Mr. Cranston’s dogs, with the necessary comments, consumed as much time as would have carried Fanny’s favourite a couple of miles on the moor.