_This beggar_, however, though a good farmer’s nag enough, knew quite well that it wasn’t his day for Market Harborough, and displayed great unwillingness to improve upon seven miles an hour in that direction. The chance of being in time faded away momently. Already they had overtaken several grooms with hunters; worse still, one or two early men on their hacks had overtaken _them_, and they had not yet struck into the high-road. At last the sound of wheels behind them caused the old horse to quicken his pace—not sufficiently so, however, to prevent the pursuing carriage from gaining on them rapidly. Mr. Sawyer looked back. Oh for a gig umbrella! It was none other than Parson Dove driving his daughter to the meet, that young lady’s very becoming costume denoting that it was her intention to join in the pleasures of the chase. Here was a predicament! To be detected by the queen of his affections, with whom he had parted at midnight, in all the correct decorum of evening costume, still in the same dress, so inappropriate at 10.30 A.M., bearing obvious tokens of having been out all night, and worse than all, with an inflamed countenance, blood-shot eyes, and a face half-eclipsed in plaister! Perdition! It was not to be thought of! With the energy of despair he snatched the whip from the Honourable’s astonished grasp, and applied it with such good will to the old horse’s ribs, that the animal broke incontinently into a gallop, and turned into the high-road some fifty yards ahead of its pursuers, who would cross that thoroughfare directly, whereas Mr. Sawyer and its driver would follow its broad track to Harborough. “Cover me up!” exclaimed our friend to his laughing companion, as he crouched in the bottom of the carriage, under the scanty gig-apron, and devoutly hoped he had escaped recognition—“cover me up! I wouldn’t be seen in this plight by any of _that_ family for a hundred pounds!” Nevertheless, he resolved, so to speak, to substantiate his _alibi_ by swearing the Honourable to secrecy, and abstaining altogether for that day from the chase. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXIII DOUGHTY DEEDS