Plodding wearily on, in the shuffling, dogged, continuous jog-trot that takes a tired hunter home, Cassock presently pricked his ears, and increased the pace of his own accord, while his rider's heart beat fast, for rising an acclivity not a bow-shot in front, fluttered the blue riding-habit that enclosed her pretty shape, nodded the feather in the saucy little hat, that could be worn so jauntily by none but Nelly Carew. Cowslip had failed to make up its lost ground in time for her to see the end of the run, and Nelly was riding soberly home, full of pleasant thoughts and fancies that grouped themselves round a figure on a grey horse, skimming the brown moorland, far ahead of all competitors, and when last seen, alone with the hounds! "Good even, Mistress Nelly," said the Parson, ranging alongside, with an awkward bow. "Nothing amiss, I hope, with Cowslip, nor its rider. 'Tis not often the pair of you give in before the deer, but you must confess that for this once Abner Gale and the old black nag had the better of pretty Mistress Carew." His voice, hoarse and thick with conflicting feelings, startled her from her day-dream. Nelly's colour rose, and the consciousness that he observed it caused her to blush deeper in mingled vexation and shame. "I made a fatal mistake at starting," said she, with a nervous little laugh and a full stop. "A great many women do that!" grunted the Parson. "And all my calculations were wrong," continued Nelly, without noticing the interruption. "If the deer had passed under Dunkerry Beacon, like the big black stag last year, and taken soil in the Barle, down by Landacre Bridge, for instance, or at Withy-pool, where would you all have been then? Your turn to-day, Master Gale, mine to-morrow. That's the rule of stag-hunting, and it seems the same for most things in life." She spoke with a flurried manner and an affectation of gaiety he did not fail to detect. The Parson's restless eye and moody brow frightened her, and glancing round on the solitude of the moor, she wished herself back with grandfather, safe at home. "I would it were the same thing in life," he answered sullenly. "A bold, straightforward man who meant fair, and feared nothing, might have a chance of holding his own, then, and wouldn't see his place taken by the first new-comer with thicker lace on his coat and more brass on his forehead. Your park-fed deer is well enough, Mistress Nelly, for them that don't know better, but who in their senses would compare it with a real wild Exmoor stag?" "I don't understand you!" said the girl, looking in vain for a companion, and wondering what had become of all the defeated riders who must be plodding steadily home. "Then I'll speak out!" replied the Parson, "and remember, what Abner Gale says that he sticks to, for good and for evil, mind. _For good and for evil!_ I'm a plain man, Mistress Carew."